U13's Warriors (35) v Harlequins (7)
Wednesday, February 2, 2011 at 12:30PM Match Report
After a convincing home win over Quins earlier in the season, Sunday saw the return fixture with them at their ground in Teddington.
With that in mind the Warriors arrived confident and raring to go with the added luxury of a substitute on the sidelines for the first time this season.
After some warm up drills, the match kicked off with the Warriors tearing into the Quins right from the off. Winning early possession the Warrior forwards recycled the ball well through several phases driving straight and sucking in the Quins defence before unleashing our pacy powerful back division to move the ball well enabling Ursher Wrightman to come on to the ball at pace before accelerating round his man to score the first of his 3 tries under the posts.
The Warrior pack continued to play at a high tempo with Bell and Baxter in the back row hassling and harrying well causing several handling errors in the Quins backs.
Loose ball was pounced on and with plenty of possession the backs ran riot with captain Lucas smashing through tackles in the mid field to score under the post
With Ewan Parker back in the scrum half berth Declan Thompson found freedom to express himself at outside centre as he chipped ahead collecting his own kick with a brilliant low pick up at speed to score under the posts.
With everyone wanting to run 50 yards and score the Warriors started to loose their discipline giving Quins more possession and also giving away several silly penalties one of which led to a Quins try just before half time.
In the second half the Quins with their confidence up started to compete better and their tackling was much improved. This seemed to surprise the Warrior players who struggled to play with the same level of team work they had showed in the first half. This meant poor possession and to much sideways running cutting down the size of the pitch and not allowing space for our backs to run.
This was the pattern for the rest of the second half before the final whistle and 7-35 victory for the Warriors.
Well, done to all the players and thanks as always to the parents for their support.
Author: Terry Baxter