Warwick Rugby Festival
Friday 14 October
On Friday 14 October the U11A squad attended the Warwick School rugby festival. It was a fantastic day, where the players were coached by the Warwick School and Worcester Warriors coaches in the morning which included former All Black Craig Newby, who now works at Warwick School. The coaching was excellent and the boys will have learnt a lot by mixing with players from other schools.
In the afternoon they played in a festival alongside big rugby schools such as Crackley Hall, Beachborough, Solihull and Bilton Grange. In the first two matches the team played with a real intensity and won both games quite comfortably against Beachborough and Crackley Hall, Shai Thompson, showing he has pace to burn regularly, going around the outside and scoring for half way. In the third game we came up against a well-drilled Bilton Grange and were losing 10-0 at half time, however a rousing second half performance saw us fight back and we were very unlucky to lose 10-5.
The final game against Solihull was excellent where both sides played some great rugby Solihull managed to sneak in with two tries in the last 2 minutes, 15-10. All of the players who made the effort to turn up put in a fantastic amount of effort and I’m sure thoroughly enjoyed the day. It is a mark of how far we have come in a short space of time that they were bitterly disappointed to lose to Solihull and I’m sure that loss will spur them on to greater things in the weeks to come.
MR PROTHEROUGH
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U11 Hockey IAPS Tournament(A)
Friday 14 October
Result: Won 2, Drew 1, Lost 2
Most Valued Player: Lazara Do
With our first match against Leicester Grammar School delayed, we got off to a slow start. After 10 minutes of play we were on top and had several shots, but all saved by the keeper. Leicester went on to get a short corner and scored and we lost 1-0.
In our next game against The Elms we got off to a great start and had all the possession and 7 shots, unfortunately none of which were converted to goals. One player from The Elms went on a run and Blue Coat were reluctant to tackle so she went on to push it past Lazara and we again lost 1-0.
Our third match was against Moreton and by this time the girls were really wanting to put the shots in and we dominated from start to finish, winning 2-0.
Our next game came after lunch and an hour’s stop in play was reflected in the girls’ very lethargic start to the match. Although we dominated again, after 5 minutes we just could not finish any of the shots we had and we drew 0-0.
Our final game was against Foremarke Hall – a team which hadn’t lost for a year and half and were at the top of our league table. The Blue Coat girls showed their real potential in this match and battled hard in every challenge. They did not let Foremarke have the ball and took the advantage by going ahead 1-0. Although Foremarke came back with a goal, Blue Coat girls were dogged in their attack and pushed forward and scored again. We won 2-1 and were the only team to beat the eventual winners of the tournament.
The girls should be very proud of themselves and as I said to them “If you are this good now, imagine how good you would be if you attended a hockey club?!”
Team: Lazara Do, Zoe Willcox, Paula Dietrich de Pablo, Tanya Leech, Amy Wilson, Jessica McGuirk, Maya Ahmed, Sofia Knight, Monique James-Thomas & Lily Falahee.
MRS BENNETT
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U9A Rugby Winterfold Festival (A)
Tuesday 18 October
Result: Won 1 Drew 1 Lost 2
Most Valued Player: Luke Dolan for always looking to go forward and showing good footwork.
The matches were either a narrow win or loss with one draw. There were a number of good individual performances during the festival and some fiercely contested fixtures. To improve as a team the boys need to look to pass away from contact and seek to run forwards rather than laterally across the pitch.
MR DAVIES
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U9C Rugby v Wolverhampton Grammar Junior School (H)
Tuesday 18 October
Blue Coat 15 – 15 WGJS
Most Valued Player: Real team performance in tries scored and tackles made.
Blue Coat enjoyed their first outing of the season, running with real intent and utilising superb support running. Dhruv Susarla, Rajan Sall, Ehsan Ali and Taranvir Kang had the extra pace to break the defence, yet all other Blue Coat players really kept up with play.
It was try to try for most of the game and Blue Coat pulled ahead right at the end. But with the last play of the match, Wolverhampton’s pacey runner broke free and offloaded in the corner to tie the match. Great fun!
Scorer: A complete mixture of try scorers
MR HARRISON
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U9D Rugby v Wolverhampton Grammar Junior School (H)
Tuesday 18 October
Result: Blue Coat 50 – 55 WGJS
Most Valued Player: Narayan Dhillon- strong forward running.
A very exciting end-to-end game, with both teams running hard in attack to score lots of tries. Both teams tried hard to grab those tags but some good support play meant that teams were still able to score.
MISS CREWS