Cup Victory for U14's

Gosport took on Portsmouth on a windswept morning, and were still missing captain Henry due to a reccurance of his back injury. Playing with the wind, the lads got off to a jittery start, the lethargy of half term perhaps still with them. The first 10 minutes were all about staunch defending and when ball was in hand , short passes were the order of the day to keep handling accurate. Finally breaking into their opponents half, Chris broke the deadlock with a dinking run and try, at last making some decent recycling pay off, and Gareth converted well in the wind. From the restart, Jaff gathered the ball and flew down the left wing handing off defenders forcefully to score the second try on 13 minutes, again converted well by Gareth. Portsmouth countered well, and deservedly scored after some tried looking Gosport tackling, and with the conversion the game was still a very tight encounter. With the wind causing problems for both sets of players, G & F gained some territory and managed to score a scrappy try, after good work by the pack. In the last 5 minutes of the first half, deep in their own territory ,the Gosport scrum was excellent and Gareth launched a kick into the opponents 22 , followed up brilliantly by Rosie and the supporting teammates who offloaded to Jaff to score on the left.

With the score 24-7 at the start of the second half, Gosport were playing into the wind, and again the first 10 minutes was a stern test with some organised but attritional defending by the lads. With some better controlled possession, on 38 minutes Chris fed the ball to Jaff, who power and speed allowed him to score his third try of the day. However, great credit to Portsmouth who fought back with three tries making it 29-22 and the final spell saw some much needed aggressive defending and rucking from a number of Gosport players, helping to ensure the victory was achieved. Well done to all the lads and the unused subs today, and hopefully the lessons learnt will be taken into the quarter finals.