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COLCHESTER RUGBY CLUB
UNDER 15 FESTIVAL
SUNDAY 29th APRIL 2007
Colchester Rugby Club hosted its annual Under 15 Festival on Sunday 29th April; the day started overcast, but the sun eventually burnt through the clouds to give a gloriously warm afternoon. Following several weeks with little or no rain, the pitches were very hard, but flat with a good covering of glass.
Seventeen clubs from around the north and east of London assembled at Colchester; many of these clubs had travelled quite a distance to take part. Saracens, with 2 squads, travelled from north London to represent Middlesex, Old Elthamians represented Kent. Luton, Ampthill and Dunstablians journeyed from Bedfordshire in the East Midlands, Essex was represented by Barking, Brentwood and Westcliff.
Eastern Counties clubs participating were Cambridge (Cambs), Norwich, North Walsham and Diss (Norfolk), together with 5 Suffolk clubs, Southwold, Woodbridge, Sudbury, Ipswich, and the home club, Colchester. I was particularly delighted that many of the strongest clubs entered to ensure a very competitive festival, and, wearing my Suffolk hat, that there was terrific support from the sub-county’s clubs. Colchester’s festivals are aimed to be ‘Rugby for All’. We hope for a showpiece final of a very high quality, but we also want teams of a more modest ability to enjoy their rugby, and consequently after the pool games, we run knock-out competitions for the Plate, Shield and Spoon. That is the nature of Colchester festivals.
In the morning, all clubs played were placed in four pools, in 7 or 10-minute each way games, to determine which clubs played in the Trophy, Plate, Shield and Spoon competitions. Ten points were awarded for a win with one bonus point for each try scored (up to a maximum of 5 per team per game).
In the Red pool, Colchester, with some of their better players missing at Eastern Counties training, were lucky to pip North Walsham by 20 points to 19 in their first game, before defeating Woodbridge 10-5 and Ampthill 12-5, to remain undefeated in the morning. North Walsham beat Ampthill by a conversion, 7-5 to claim second place.
P W D F A Bonus Points
1st Colchester 3 3 42 29 8 38
2nd N Walsham 3 2 54 25 8 28
3rd Ampthill 3 1 17 19 3 13
4th Woodbridge 3 0 5 45 1 1
The Silver Pool was very competitive. After Saracens A had opened their account with a thorough defeat of Diss by 36-0, both Southwold (15-0) and Dunstablians (17-0) gave them closer games. Southwold had 3 very close games, beating Barking by 7-5, before drawing 7-7 with Diss and defeating Dunstablians 7-5. Barking also defeated Dunstablians 5-0, before overtuning Saracens, the form side, in the crucial game by 8-5. Diss beat Dunstablians 12-0. Dunstablians, although losing all 4 matches were game in defeat.
P W D F A Bonus Points
1st Saracens A 4 3 73 8 8 38
2nd Barking 4 3 25 17 4 34
3rd Southwold 4 2 1 21 32 3 28
4th Diss 4 1 1 24 50 4 19
5th Dunstablians 4 0 5 41 1 1
In the Gold Pool, both Westcliff (28-0) and Luton (21-0) started with comfortable wins over Saracens B and Sudbury, respectively, before meeting in what turned out to be the crucial match, with Luton winning by 14-5 to claim first place in the pool. Saracens B and Subury played out a 14-14 draw before Luton and Westcliff won their third games.
P W D F A Bonus Points
1st Luton 3 3 62 5 10 40
2nd Westcliff 3 2 40 14 6 26
3rd Sudbury 3 0 1 14 42 2 7
4th Saracens B 3 0 1 14 69 2 7
The Blue Pool also turned out to be very competitive, but with lower scores than in the other pools. Brentwood started with a comfortable win over Ipswich 17-0, before losing to Cambridge 5-0. Old Elthamians also started with a comfortable win over Norwich 22-0, and a tight victory over Ipswich 7-0, before sharing a 7-7 draw with Brentwood. Ipswich beat Norwich 12-0. Cambridge followed up their opening win with a comfortable win over Norwich 17-0, before meeting Old Elthamians in the crucial game, winning a tight match by just 5-0. They completed their morning with a victory over Norwich by 17-0, to remain unbeaten, and without having conceded a score.
P W D F A Bonus Points
1st Cambridge 4 4 44 0 6 46
2nd O Elthamians 4 2 1 36 12 6 31
3rd Brentwood 4 1 2 24 12 4 24
4th Ipswich 4 1 12 41 2 12
5th Norwich 4 0 1 0 51 0 5
The 2 teams in 5th place in their pools, Dunstablians and and Norwich met to play for the Spoon with Norwich winning by 19-0
In the Shield B for teams in 4th place, Ipswich beat Woodbridge 12-0 and Diss beat Saracens B 10-0. Diss claimed the Shield with a 10-0 victory in the final.
In the Shield A for teams in 3rd place, Ampthill and Brentwood drew 5-5, but Brentwood went through to the final courtesy of scoring the first try, where they met Southwold who had beaten Sudbury 17-7 in the other semi. Southwold claimed the Shield by beating Brentwood 7-0.
In the Plate semis, Old Elthamians had a comfortable victory over N Walsham by 24-5. Barking beat Westcliff 7-0 in the other match. In a tense high action Plate Final Old Elthamians went ahead by 14-0 before Barking recovered to 14-7. Old Elthamians had to defend their line for the last few minutes to maintain their lead and claim the Plate.
Four outstanding sides lined up for the Trophy semis. Saracens beat Luton by 14-0, and Cambridge, scored a last second try to defeat Colchester by 5-0. The Final was a tremendous contest; in the first half Cambridge launched a series of attacks, but splendid defence from Saracens prevented a score; similarly in the second half Saracens were held out by great Cambridge defence; the game looked as if it was heading for a scoreless draw before Saracens were able to put their winger clear in the very last seconds to score a try in the far right hand corner, to win the Trophy 5-0.
The trophies were presented by Jim Crowley, President of Colchester RFC and David Smith, a former youth player at Colchester, now of Northampton Saints, who this year has represented both England Under 19s and England Under 20s as well as the England Sevens squad.
This was a superb day’s rugby. The standard of rugby was very high, and all sides contributed to a magnificent day. There was a tremendous ‘buzz’ about the grounds, and nearly 400 boys participated in the day. May I thank the ‘back-room’ team of John Abbott for his efforts in the score caravan, benignly assisted by Ron Hatch, the runners Joe and James on their bicycles, and Martin Pratley and Kevin Rixon, the pitch marshals.
Thanks must also go to my refereeing colleagues, Nick White, Jon Tatum and John Rose of the Suffolk & North Essex Society, and Andy Docherty, Martin Goodman, Ross Cowie and Paddy Heeson of the London Society for their contribution to the day. Further thanks to Liz Merrick, Ian Succamore and Chris Godden, our club Physiotherapists for tending to injuries during the day.
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