May be it should rain every week!

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If the rain brings performances like Sunday, may it rain every week!

Please read further down for more about the great performance on Sunday!

Sunday 9th December

Off on our travels this weekend. Leighton Buzzard for one, Stockwood Park for the other. If in your haste to get dry on Sunday you went away wearing a TAG belt and TAGS can you bring them along as they are the match set. The teams are as follows:

Leighton Buzzard

Arrival time is 10.00

Wrights Meadow ,Leighton Road, Stanbridge, Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, LU7 9HR, tel: 01525 371322

Leave M1 Northbound at Junc 12. Turn right towards Toddington. In Toddington at main village green turn right at Bell Public House towards Tebworth. Follow this road through Tebworth for 2.5 miles to a T junction. Turn left onto A5 towards Dunstable. Follow A5 to Roundabout. Turn Right onto A505 Leighton By Pass. Take second right off Bypass (signposted Stanbridge Road Industrial Estate) LBRFC is half a mile up on right hand side.
Web site: http://www.buzzardrugby.co.uk/

The following are either assumed available or have confirmed:
Alfie
Harry L
Sam
Jonathan
Pippa
Elliot W
Jack
Still to confirm:
Joseph
Joe W
Ben L

Stockwood Park:

Arrival Time is 10.45

SPRFC, London Road, Luton, Beds., LU1 3RN, 01582 728 044
http://stockwoodparkrfc.co.uk/contact.html

The following are assumed available or have confirmed:
Jordan
Harry D
Alex
Rhian
Niall
Still to confirm:
Iago
David
Elliot S
Rees
Joshua

Sunday 2nd December

What a morning……Hemel turned up with a full squad a managed to put out teams of 8. As Jill mentions in the match reports, this proved no problem for Lions and the Tigers gave some great performances. Check out the photos (not many due to the rain, but they do show how wet it was but that team photo at the end was in sunshine!)

11 - Hemel Hempstead 9
A horrible wet day brightened up by some amazing rugby from our Lions team. Couldn't help but noticing that Hemel had eight players on the pitch to our seven but that didn't worry our team. Right from the start, Elliot started off the score following some excellent passing and communication. Hemel equalised, but twisty hips Sam put us ahead again. Tries went with play, with Harry L keeping our lead following a fine individual run. The whole team worked well together supporting each other and maintaining discipline which enabled Harry L to get his second of the game. Just before half time, Alfie finished off yet another well worked team effort to put us 5 - 4 ahead at the break. After the brief break, Jordan got his name on the score sheet, with Harry L getting his hatrick shortly after. Hemel went ahead following a turnover ball but Alex equalised. Again, I can't emphasis enough how well the whole team played together and as a result, Harry L finished off another great team effort with a try to get the lead back. Quick and accurate passes kept us ahead of Hemel, with Alfie making it number 10 for Hitchin. A final storming try from Harry D with the last play, gave Hitchin a fabulous well deserved win.

Hitchin 9 - Hemel Hempstead 7
The rain really came down hard, so much so that most of my notes got so soggy I couldn't read them! However this was another great display of team rugby with our try scorers in order as follows -Elliot, Alfie, Harry D, Sam, Elliot, Sam, Alfie, Elliot, Alfie. It would be really unfair not to say that all these tries came from a whole team effort - am sure that Eric will emphasise this in his report.
Well done to the whole team.

Tries in total
Sam - 3
Harry D - 2
Elliot - 4
Harry L -4
Jordan - 1
Alex - 1
Alfie - 5

Now follows some fine words from Eric…….

'Coach's Comments

What can I say...BRILLIANT, the BEST you've played if not ever, certainly this season - well done all of you, both LIONS and TIGERS.

Despite the dreadful weather and the fact you played against an extra Hemel player in all matches you put in performances that made all the hard work on Sunday mornings well worth it - thank you - all the coaches were really proud of you!!

In defence, you DEFENDED your CHANNELS; HOLDING your POSITION and waited for Hemel to come to you before getting their tags.

In attack, you ran forward with great pace and some excellent side-steps and when you had defenders around you, you PASSED the BALL WIDE to CREATE SPACE allowing one of your team-mates to score the try.

The set up in DEFENCE and the 'ARROW' in attack were all lined up ready to go before the referee was ready to blow the whistle and there was lots and lots of communication between players - excellent!

All in all, there is very little to say other than...GREAT, JUST KEEP IT UP.

This week's Player of the Week was Joseph. This award has been coming for a few weeks now. Joseph, in his first season playing rugby, has really taken to the game and his performances have been of the highest quality. His running and side-steps have brought him a number of tries and this has built the confidence in the rest of his game. His positional play, support running and tagging are very good. He played for the Tigers this week, but at this rate of improvement he will soon be a regular with the more experienced Lions. Well done Joseph, very well deserved.

This week we have matches at both Leighton Buzzard and Stockwood Park. We will mix the teams up and I will go with one team and Simon will take the other.

Thank you for an excellent performance this week - let's have the same on Sunday.

Eric