A great morning of competitive rugby for the U9s at the Winchester Festival

The Under 9s enjoyed a great morning of competitive rugby at the Winchester Festival. Despite having a habit of starting slow, the opening match against Eastleigh was won comfortably 8-3 with Zac Darcy scoring a brace and late call up Harry Gray barging over the line for two as well. Next up were a strong Fordingbridge side, who we’d beaten at New Milton but on this occasion after a ding-dong battle lost narrowly 3-4, Ned Bowden put in a number of cracking tackles and Harry White showed some blistering pace to scorch in for a great try in the corner. The team quickly recovered against Farnham Heathens, winning 3-0, with Oscar Thirlwall getting in on the try scoring act and Toby Bingham making a series of crunching tackles to force turnover after turnover. Unfortunately the next game against Winchester Gold was a bit of lesson, with Winchester winning 6-2 but the boys showed great resilience to fight back with Zach Hayward muscling over for a good score and James Manning scattering defenders at will for the final try of the game. Another Winchester team were last up as the boys saved their best defensive display till last edging a tight match 2-1 with the TMO disallowing Winchester’s final attempted score at the death to confirm Alton finished the day on a high. Archie Williams contributed some strong direct running to rock Winchester back and Cameron Grinstead again proved a slippery attacking force throughout the game. The endeavour award for the day went to Toby Bingham for consistently tackling very aggressively and also being a real threat running with the ball in attack. Training next week for the whole squad in preparation for the last game of 2018 at Petersfield the following week.