DATE

Opponent

Result

Score

11 Oct 2009

Wimbledon B Festival

One of our first two tournaments this season, the other played today too, at Reeds. We faced some very stiff competition. We lost our first game to Chobham, won the next game against Esher 5-1, lost the next game against Guildfordians and lost the final game against Richmond. We scored tries in all but one of our games, and came third in our group overall. We played well, but identified areas that we need to improve on to make us more competitive in a festival environment.

The players enjoyed themselves, these being their first competitive contact games against other sides and we came away battered, with a few bruises, but up for our next tournament.

DATE

Opponent

Result

Score

11 Oct 2009

Reeds A Festival

This was the other of our two tournaments this weekend, with 6 teams in each pool. Again we played some very strong teams (Rosslyn Park, Richmond, Reeds, Teddington and Farnham) and played some of our best rugby when faced with one of the strongest teams. We were unable to secure a victory amongst the 5 games we played, but we played well and the players should be proud of how they held themselves up. Again, we have highlighted areas to concentrate on in advance of future festivals.

 The players remained positive and fought some tough games, this festival also being the first competitive contact games for our A's squad.

DATE

Opponent

Result

Score

18 Oct 2009

Camberley A+B Festival

Plate winners B's

Runners up A's

See below

Wow, what a fantastic day we had today. I think everyone, players, parents and coaches went away really pleased with how things went today - and so they should. The players completely upped their game from last week, played really good rugby and enjoyed themselves to boot. Smiles all round.

We were second in the A's festival and won the plate in the B's festival. Both teams lost only one game, winning and drawing their other three games. Fantastic! Whatever the result, the players played really well and should be proud of themselves. the actual results for those who are interested were:

A's: Sutton & Epsom drawn(0-0), Haslemere won(1-0), Dorking drawn (0-0). Final against Sutton & Epsom lost (2-0). The final was a closely fought game which could have gone either way. Well done Blacks.

B's: Farnham lost (2-4), Sutton & Epsom drawn (0-0), Haslemere won (4-0). Plate final against Drifters drawn (1-1). we were joint plate winners here. But due to the fair play from our coaching team, we refused to acknowledge the winning try for our team on the basis that the referee had missed an error on the try. Great play Golds.

The under 9's contributed to a successful Camberley festival, matching the success of both the Under 7's, Under 8's and the Under 12's. And those were just the squads we spoke to at the end of the day. Well done everyone and thank you especially to the players for pulling out all the stops today. Well done again!

DATE

Opponent

Result

Score

8 November 2009

Redingensians Home

won 5, lost 1

This was the first of our friendlies this season and we were very pleased to have Redingensians visit us, the weather was much kinder to us than when we visited Redingensians last year when we had freezing driving rain.

We had three teams and each played at least one game against the Redingensians teams. We showed some good skills and with some great driving play, this contributed to our 5 wins out of the 6 matches played. The scores were 8-0,5-0, 2-0, 4-0, 0-5 & 3-1, with one of our teams not conceding a single try. Well done everyone!   

DATE

Opponent

Result

Score

15 November 2009

Chipstead Away 

cancelled

Due to waterlogged pitches, unfortunately our friendly at Chipstead was cancelled and we had training at home.

DATE

Opponent

Result

Score

29 November 2009

Reeds + Richmond Away

Blacks - won 2, lost 2

Golds - lost 4

Barbars - lots of fun

The results do not belie how well we played. Reeds and Richmond were amongst the teams we played at our first festival where to be brutally honest, we were comprehensively beaten. There seemed to be a lot of raised eyebrows at our performance. We knew we could do it though!

After a warm up session, we played game after game. Due to the weather conditions, we had a depleted squad and so could not field three full teams and so played a Barbars team. The Barbars were lucky enough to have the experience of playing 6 games. There was some great tackling and a Mauling king was discovered. A great time was had.

The Blacks tackled well and did well in the breakdown. We blew the competition away with our rucking,  retaining and winning possession time and time again with our rucking play. As a result we received admiring comments from the coaches of all squads. Well played.

The Golds first games were against the opposing teams A teams and were really tough games.The players got a bit despondent but picked themselves up and upped their game. They spent much more time in their opponents half and displayed steely determination to play well, putting in more and harder tackles. Great team spirit. 

We had an enjoyable time and showed some great play.

DATE

Opponent

Result

Score

6 December 2009

Farnham + KCS Home

Cancelled

Waterlogged pitches

DATE

Opponent

Result

Score

13 December 2009 

Bracknell Home

won 2, lost 2

The weather was good to us, albeit it was more wintery and several players did not sport enough layers and knocks and bangs hurt more due to being cold.

Bracknell came with similar numbers to us and we were able to play two teams each with substitutes coming on and off so everyone got to play. The Blacks played two full games and one short game and the Golds played two games.

The Blacks played well again, showing determination in the tackle and the breakdown. They played all their games against the Bracknell A team and the two teams were fairly evenly matched. The Blacks siezed the day however and secured wins in all three games played, 2-1, 3-2 and 1-0.

The Golds again had similar skill levels to the Bracknell B team and but for too many missed tackles and not being so quick at the breakdown, the scores were against them at 0-1 and 0-3.

A good time was had by all thank you Bracknell.

DATE

Opponent

Result

Score

20 December 2009

London Irish 

Cancelled

Waterlogged pitches

DATE

Opponent

Result

Score

10 January 2010

Wimbledon and Guildford

Cancelled

 Snow

DATE

Opponent

Result

Score

17 January 2010

Haslemere

Cancelled

Snow and waterlogged pitches

DATE

Opponent

Result

Score

7 February 2010

Wimbledon and Old Ruts

Cancelled

Cancelled due to a waterlogged pitch at Wimbledon

DATE

Opponent

Result

Score

7 February 2010

Windsor

won 1, drew 1, lost 1

Many thanks to Windsor who agreed to a last minute fixture on Saturday lunchtime, after Wimbledon cancelled their triangular with us on Friday evening.

We had a lovely time, both sides with very similar numbers and so everyone had good game time. The Blacks played two games and the Golds played one extra long game. The Blacks were very evenly matched against the Windsor A's. In the first game we ping ponged tries and due to time lost 5-4. In our second game we held Windsor off the try line, with the whistle going just after they made their second try and the final try of the game, the score being 2-2.

The Golds had a great game, winning 5-0 and dominating the game, giving Windsor very little opportunity to break through. There was a great cohesiveness shown and some good team play.

Well done everyone!

DATE

Opponent

Result

Score

21 February 2010

Redingensians A Festival

runners up

There was the one pool and all teams played one another, 5 games being played in total. We won 3, drew 1 and lost 1, not conceding any tries in the matches we won. The other teams we played were Abbey Reading, Bracknell, Farnham, Redingensians and Maidenhead.

The conditions underfoot were slippy for all but everyone played well. We were not as fast onto the ball as we could be and so lost possession more than we would have liked. The forwards pushed forward well and with determination and the backs ran like the wind when given the opportunity. Overall a very pleasing result. The boys all went away with medals having deserved thier victory.

DATE

Opponent

Result

Score

28 February 2010

Haslemere

Cancelled

Cancelled due to rain

DATE

Opponent

Result

Score

14 March 2010

Chobham and Twickenham (A)

won 2, lost 2

As it happened Twickenham didn't attend and we hosted Chobham at home.

 The weather was lovely and we had relatively even numbers. Chobham's B team were away at a festival and so brought their A's and C's. There were mixed warm ups and drills before we had a few games. The Blacks and Golds played the Chobham A's and the Squirrels played the Chobham C's twice.

The Blacks were evenly matched against the Chobham A's with both teams showing some good play. Chobham stole it in the end and the score was 1-0. The Golds played well against the Chobham A's but were outplayed with a final result of 4-1.

The stars of the day were the Squirrels though, who dominated both their games against the Chobham C's with scores of 3-1 and 1-0. Well done.

It was nice to have the good weather and the opportunity to play another team which seems to have happened few and far between this season. Thank you Chobham. 

DATE

Opponent

Result

Score

21 March 2010

Sutton & Epsom C Festival

Won 2 and lost 3

This was the first C festival we have entered, as our squad has grown so that we now have the numbers to achieve this. The other teams that played were Sutton & Epsom, Cobham, Chobham, Effingham & Leatherhead and Old Whitgiftians.

It was a long old day though, we were the only team that had the first match of the day and the last match of the day and so had long gaps between most matches during which the players had to be kept motivated. The guys did play some fantastic rugby and really pulled together as a team.  

We played our best rugby in the first three games. In the second half of our first game, being 2-0 down we played a much stronger game in the second half, defended well in our tackling and rucking and prevented any more tries to be scored against us. We played really great rugy in the next two games and won, deservedly. We did then go off the boil and did not play consistently as well in our last two games and were defeated (I blame it on the sunshine, the moonlight etc). There were still good tackles being made, good breaks being made and some good play around the breakdown - but to no avail.

The only two teams that won more games that us went on to be first and second in the festival- so well done guys, great rugby!

DATE

Opponent

Result

Score

28 March 2010

Reading Abbey A Festival

won 3, drew 1, lost 2

This was a relentless festival. 6 games in all, with two lots of two successive games with no break allowed and, if everyone had been playing to time on both pitches we would have been playing two games at the same time on different pitches! The pace was fast and we had little more than a single game at most to rest between games. Having said that it did not allow the players to lose focus between games, but they were visibly tired towards the end.

We played our best rugby at the start, being much more aggressive in pushing up and passing the ball wide. As we tired we did less of both and did not play quite as well. Where we had players playing out of their normal position, we lost strength in some areas, particularly at the breakdown.  Having said that the players showed some effective tackling and aggressive play. Overall we scored 15 tries over the 6 games.

Well done guys.

DATE

Opponent

Result

Score

11 April 2010

Surrey Development (Camberley)

drew 1, lost 3

As the festival started, it seemed that nearly every team was going to be drawing against one another. Once we got to the finishing the third game on each pitch there were at last a couple of victories over the 4 drawn matches.

We drew our first game too. However we seemed to get sucked into mauls that were long in ending and we did not get the ball wide to make some faster play to score more tries. We contested well at the breakdown, put in some great tackles but were not able to get enough of an attack going to score more tries ourselves. Our pool was quite a close knit one, with no victory being more than 2 tries difference at most and the most tries we conceded in a game was 2 tries, however we were unable to secure a victory ourselves.

We did not make many mistakes resulting in turnover ball so there was good consistent play there, so well done guys.

DATE

Opponent

Result

Score

18 April 2010

Surrey A Festival

Cup quarter finals

Didn't they do well. Based on the guys great performances today we are now one of the 8 best teams in Surrey. Each year we have improved our result, from bowl, to plate and now reaching the cup quarter finals! At the time of writing, we await to see if the team we played in the quarter final went on to win the final.

We did not concede a single penalty in any of our games. We rucked, we mauled, we passed and we ran. We even scored a few tries along the way. And what's more we had a good time doing it all. We played what is certainly some of our best rugby today.

 Well done guys!