Vectis away - What a great day and a tremendous team performance.

What a great day out! Despite the bitter wind that made it very cold on the northern slopes of the Isle of Wight the Ravens put in a great team performance within sight of their home ground on the farthest shore.

We took a full squad of 14 to Vectis and were received with fantastic hospitality. It is a real shame, and a sad reflection on our game in Hampshire, that we were the first clubs youth section to actually turn up at Vectis this season. Before we look at the players performance we should note, and thank, the parents commitment to this day. An early departure and late finish in the afternoon on a Sunday with an added financial outlay is a much appreciate contribution to the team spirit that the Ravens have built. Car sharing allowed us to travel almost en masse as a team to be at our hosts well on time for the start time, and we managed to squeeze in a warm up of touch rugby that clearly paid off. Throughout our day our coaching team was ably supported by our side line heroes of Jim (Medical/Photos), Taff and Claire (Match Records). Richard, Mick, George …. our coaching team were rightly proud of our team today as it reflected on their continued commitment to the development of our young players. Of course behind all of this is the highest standard of team management from Louise who pulled the day together for everyone.

We split to two teams and played the two Vectis teams at 7 aside 10 minutes each way; we came away with 1 draw and 3 wins. We then moved to a bigger pitch for the club game and the team carried on their winning performance with a 4-2 victory over Vectis with tries from Henry, Ethan, Kye and Luke.

The list of players and total tries scored is as follows: Henry(5), Harry(1), Kerr, William(2), GeorgeJ, Ethan(2), Kye(8), Gregor(1), Jack(6), Ollie, Callum(1), Findlay(5), Edward(1), Luke(1). This was a true team performance with every player contributing to both our on field victories and off field reputation. Edward and Harry were awarded the two trophies for the day for their overall performance and direction of play throughout the day; although they weren’t high scorers they contributed significantly to the creation of the scoring chances in both attack and defence. We shouldn’t get carried away with this result as we still need to tackle better on occasions, rather than ‘scrag’ the opposition. Hanging onto their shirt to slow them down allows them to pass; we need to put them on the ground with a proper tackle and compete for the ball. We were much sharper on the ground this week and the turnovers we won kept us in possession and attacking.

Thank you Ravens for a great day out …. Arthur (Head Coach)