Evesham U13s 14 pts, Malvern U13s 12 pts

It’s never easy when your team starts with 14 players……

However, an under strength Malvern U13s continued their improvement against a strong Evesham side that boasted county level half backs, losing narrowly 14-12; on arrival we had to ask if one of their players could fill in at wing for us! The other wing was filled by our prop Mat Street who, with wonderful team spirit, volunteered for the role; he even got the ball a few times and thundered over the gain line in very unprop-like fashion!

It is still a trait of this young team that they take ten minutes to get going, something that cost us dearly at this fixture as we let a strong team start well and score two tries without reply. However, from then on, Evesham never looked as though they were in the game as we started playing and really took the game to them. The forwards were outstanding in terms of quality of recycled ball that they produced, and the half backs were encouragingly astute with distribution, bringing the other backs into the game, especially the centres, with great gains in both territory and opportunity.

Ben Kite was driven over on the wave of a magnificent forward drive in the first half that March Cossali-Francis duly converted. Laurie Essenhigh, playing out of position at number nine, made a typical scrum half break from a good twenty metres to find Max Holt in support, who went over for the try. This rattled the opposition and credit has to go to Evesham for keeping us out as we dominated the remainder of the game with really good rugby.

Well done boys!

Tim Cossali-Francis
Team Coach U13s

Updated: 20 November, 2009