Burnham U7's toughest test so far for the team

Burnham U7's travelled to Braintree to face their toughest test yet. With 8 players available we split into two teams of 4 and played two games at the same time.

A pre-game team talk letting the players know that they needed to play their best had a a slightly negative affect on their performances. Burnham started a little slower than normal and didn't have their usual confident play. However after a few tries on both sides Burnham started to get back to basics and keeping their defensive shape. With Braintree having a couple of substitutes on each team they were able to have fresh legs every now and then but Burnham kept on going. A little half time pep talk letting the Burnham players know that the scores were close seemed to remind them that they could do well.

The first two games ended up with scores of 13-10 and 16-13 to Burnham. In both games Burnham's tagging got better towards the end of the game which frustrated Braintree slightly but also meant that they could then pounce on any ball that was dropped from a pass.

The second games were again close but with Burnham having a bit more belief in themselves both teams started well. Tries were flowing in both games but again Burnham's defensive tagging with some great diving tags at times stopped Braintree from scoring certain tries. The end of the second half of the second game for the game that I refereed showed some great rugby from both sides with some end to end play without tries being scored. Hopefully it was great to watch from the sidelines?!

One of the games finished 20-17 in Burnham's favour with every player split the tries almost evenly between all four players. The other game finished 14-11 in Burnham's favour with Casey scoring 10 of the 14 tries! However all players played their part showing great TREDS towards their teammates and the opposition players.

After all the games had finished we found out that some of the Braintree players had only started playing Rugby this year but it didn't show. They had some great runners with ball in hand and sent the Burnham defence in all sorts of directions.

Every player scored tries this week, totals were Casey - 16, George - 11, Daniel & Jake - 8 each, Finian & Lucas - 6 each, Thomas & Zachery - 2 each, but also every player tagged really well and and in particular Casey & Jake were trying to outdo each other with the diving tags. Thomas, George, Zachery & Lucas were organising the team well and Finian seemed to cover every blade of grass not only supporting the runners but also getting tags. Daniels running lines made the referee (myself) dizzy watching him at times but is was very effective and getting through to score tries.

Piggy