Youngsters enjoy great start to the season

04/10/09 - Under 7's & 8's vs Castle Cary

Report by Simon Marshall

After 4 weeks of hot weather training at Beggars Brook, the first game of the season finally arrived.  Our opponents, Castle Cary, brought a veritable army over from East Somerset; 20 under 7’s and nearly as many under 8’s!  This gave us something of a problem with our under 8’s currently being able to field 2 players!

The coaches agreed, in the spirit of mini’s rugby, to give everyone the chance of a game.  We would play 2 games at under 7’s and then the most experienced and older Pethy players would play against the not informidable might of the Castle Cary under 8’s.

MATCH 1

The game started and after only 30 seconds and some confusion in the Castle Cary ranks, a loose ball was picked up by Ben Jackson, who showing some of his dad’s tactical guile and a much better turn of speed, made it over their line for the first try.  Castle Cary were good opponents but a mixture of some indecision by them and some excellent drift defence from Pethy who were now growing in confidence, meant that Pethy were quickly 3 tries to nil up thanks to further tries from Oliver Jack and Oscar Hallett.  Castle Cary did eventually score an excellent try in the right hand corner but 2 further tries from William Dyer and Sam Cobb sealed the match and gave Pethy a deserved win. Credit for this result, apart from the hard work in training by all of the Pethy players, should go mainly to the coaches, Roger and Lee, who have been doing some excellent work in training.

FINAL SCORE NORTH PETHERTON 25 – CASTLE CARY 5

MATCH 2

This match saw Pethy put a team of our younger and more inexperienced players.  Castle Cary quickly found out where the try line was this game with some excellent interplay and excellent tries scored at speed.    The younger Pethy players acquitted themselves well, with defence again particularly good.  Star player for Pethy was Harrison Otley with a hat trick of tries in his first ever game of rugby!  I think at the end of the match I heard the promise of double pocket money for Harrison this week from his parents!!

FINAL SCORE NORTH PETHERTON 15 – CASTLE CARY 25

MATCH 3

This saw the Pethy team from match 1 pitted against the Castle Cary under 8’s who were very well drilled and generally much larger than our team.  Initially the Pethy defence was pulled apart by the speed of the Castle Cary attack but eventually Pethy settled down and started to take the game back to them.  Two tries by Oscar Hallett (his dad now owes me 3 pints for mentioning all his tries!) and one in the dying moments by Nicholas Payne meant the game ended in a draw.

FINAL SCORE NORTH PETHERTON 15 – CASTLE CARY 15

Overall a great start to the season.  Thanks go to Castle Cary for bringing over a sizeable squad, playing in a great spirit and generally helping to make the day so enjoyable.  We look forward to the return fixture at Castle Cary although there is no return match in the fixture list at the current time. 

Special thanks also to all the wives, mum’s and dad’s who rolled their sleeves up and helped out gallantly in the kitchen to ensure the post match buffet was such a success!

Finally thanks to everyone who takes the trouble to bring their children every Sunday through fair weather and foul!

NEXT WEEK WESTON SUPER MARE AWAY