U15s on Tour

The U15s headed to Butlins at Minehead for their 2013 tour – to participate in the Leicester Tigers Challenge. The biggest challenge was the mobilisation of 27 players and 41 parents and siblings – which was handled admirably by Me Duchess - Sharon Hall.

Unfortunately, the vagaries of the coach company were outside of her control – and a 17:30 meet outside Barnet Odeon on Friday for an 18:00 departure turned into an 18:15 meet inside The Red Lion – with a 19:30 departure. The fun didn’t end there as a crash closed a stretch of the M5 – and with our driver appearing to be Tw@t Nav illiterate – a journey around the wilds of Wiltshire and Somerset saw us arriving at our destination at 01:00 Saturday morning. Nevertheless, the adults had remained well lubricated and showed admirable Barnet spirit to polish off all liquid refreshment – including emergency reserves.

Having been handed brand new shirts in the week prior to tour, courtesy of funds raised through the season, Father Christmas made his second delivery en-route to Minehead, and the boys were presented with track suits to match – courtesy of sponsorship – organised by M’Lud – and the good people at Woodlands Site Services. We were definitely the smartest lot on tour.

Saturday dawned bright and sunny. Unfortunately, with a 08:00 meet for breakfast, and a coach trip to the pitches for a 10:00 kick off, everyone was looking and feeling slightly coach-lagged. Six under 15s teams were present at the tournament, with each match 9 minutes each way.

Game 1 vs Corsham
Corsham were runners up in the U15s Wiltshire Cup – so a decent outfit. The Barnet boys were definitely jaded, not helped by the long journey or the massive buffet breakfast they’d consumed an hour before – but with only 9 minutes each way to play, the match was frantic – with neither side able to make an impression, and lots of mistakes. Corsham finally made the breakthrough from their strong back line to go ahead 5 – 0 . This stung the Barnet boys into action, and from a 5 metre scrum Kadeem stormed across the line, lifting one of the Corsham players clean off of his feet with a hand-off in the process – to level the scores at 5 – 5. Chances followed at both ends, but with neither side able to add to their tally, the game finished at 5 – 5.

Summary: – 9 minutes each way left us feeling slightly unsatisfied with the amount of rugby, and a full game between the two sides would have been an interesting proposition.

Highlight: – Kadeem’s hand off

Game 2 vs Havant
Havant, Hampshire Champions, were undefeated all season until the previous week when they’d lost 21-14 to Ampthill in the England u15s cup final. Ampthill play in HML Div 1 and have won that league each year by a county mile, beating Saracens As 36 – 0 this season – gulp!

The Havant side scored at will. They had 15+ boys who were fast strong, athletic and who could all pass off of either hand (and catch). It was difficult to pick out who were forwards and who were backs - their style of rugby was like watching sevens – but with fifteen players. They rarely took the ball in to contact, but ran great supporting lines to keep the ball alive.

Credit to the Barnet boys, they kept plugging away, and for a period of 3 minutes in the second half played great keep ball, rumbling the ball up the pitch and were feet away from crossing, but a turnover saw the ball whipped from one end of the pitch to another – for another Havant try.

Summary: A facile victory for an outstanding side who also put 40/50 points to nil on all the other teams in the tournament.

Highlight: Havant’s style of play was a joy to watch – very Southern Hemisphere and coaches and boys learned a lot from that game, and the next game they watched Havant play. Also, the 3 minutes in the second half where we kept the ball and dared to dream we might even cross their line.

Game 3 vs Sidmouth
With Sidmouth 3 players short, they decided they’d borrow 3 of the best players from Havant and their game plan centred around passing it to those guys. Barnet scored one try and Havant scored the other for a 5 – 5 draw.

Spoilsports

With 3 games played – that was the Saturday fixtures fulfilled – so it was back to Butlins for a long hard afternoon and evening of entertainment.

Summary: boys off swimming/amusements/wandering around in a big mob, mums off shopping, dads off to the bar.

Highlight: Simon Moy – who receives the honorary status of LEGEND – for the pink wig, frock and his immunity to anaesthetic in any shape or form - in fact a baby elephant would have been felled.

And so to day 2. With Kadeem heading back down the M4 for a county match, and Niall still suffering from the Eartha Kitts – we were down to the bare bones – just 25 players!

A 13:00 kick off was a much more reasonable time – and allowed the boys to have another big buffet breakfast and cheeseburgers and chips when we arrived at the pitch.

Game 4 vs Minehead Barbarians
Another tight game – with Minehead running out 10 – 5 winners. Chances at both ends, with Barnet conceding a soft try when running out of their own 22. A rather nasty looking injury below the ribcage to Liam held the game up for 5 mins while the Paramedics attended, but thankfully he’d recovered enough to go swimming later that day.

Two more injuries to Afam and Louis – both in the same area (and I don’t mean of the pitch) – had both players and spectators rolling about – the players in obvious discomfort – the spectators in hysterics. Both players asked for something to take the pain away, but leave the swelling (the old ones are the best).

Summary: Another close game – with Minehead just edging it.

Highlight: Afam – what a drama queen
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Game 5 vs Weston-Super-Mare
And so to our final game. With the boys lounging/basking on a stack of baled hay – the ref approached with a 1 minute warning to get a team organised and on the pitch. Quick as a flash, the boys piped up with “let’s play backs in the forwards, and forwards in the backs”. Mob rule won the day – and that’s how the game kicked off – two centres in the second row, two wingers and a fly half in the back row, number 8 and a flanker at 9 and 10, two second rows in the centres, another second row on one wing, and to finish off, one prop on the wing and another at fullback.

The game stayed scoreless through the first half, mainly due to the number of penalties against Barnet due to over-exuberance – but the boys were having a great time (I think the ref was also a little miffed at the boys laughing and joking).

Playing uphill in the second half, and trying to rotate as many players as possible, the Barnet side began to take more of a familiar shape and we ran in two tries – a move off of the training pitch put Frazer in – and a charge down from Andreas closed the game out at 10 – 0.

Summary: A fun, enthusiastic performance.

Highlight: The boys all really enjoying themselves – if we had approached every game with that exuberance we’d have blown most of the teams away.

And so, back to Butlins – for a last opportunity for play/relaxation.
Not to be outdone, the homeward journey also entailed a detour off of the M4 (thankfully Gilo knew the way) and we arrived back tired and dishevelled at approx. 01:30 Monday morning.

Summary: A great tour thoroughly enjoyed by all

Highlights: Many – to try and name a few:
Sharon on the journey down....
Watching Havant play...
Simon on Saturday afternoon/evening......

.....but the lasting memory will be how the boys all bonded as a group, and the sheer exuberance of the final game – which both players and spectators thoroughly enjoyed and which summed up the tour as a whole.

Roll on the next one!