Fylde v Kendal U8s

This weekend saw the second return fixture for our U8 squad against a strong Fylde squad, who we played in our first fixture of the season. This provided us with an excellent opportunity to assess the progress made by our players, after struggling in the home fixture where Fylde proved to have a more united team.

It was pleasing to see that as a squad we have improved individually and were able to match the Fylde players for skill and speed, but what was particular pleasing was the much improved team unity and communication. All three of the teams that played on Sunday could be heard encouraging each other, getting in good positions to support attacking players and talking to each other to get into a good defensive line.

Although it wasn’t particularly easy to keep track of results across all three pitches, and given just how impressed the coaching/management team and parents were in the performance of the Hornets, the overall result was largely irrelevant. That being said I know the players always like to keep track of the score (sometimes too much during the game itself!!), I’m confident that on this occasion we came out on top by 5-4. Very well done everybody on a great performance on a chilly Sunday morning.

With such an improved performance by everyone in the squad, it certainly made the choice of player of the week a tricky one, with the final decision being supported by the consistently good performances made over the past 4-5 weeks in which he has been very close to picking up player of the week on each occasion, so a very well done goes to Blake Airey. Excellent attacking runs and clean breaks as usual, backed up by an improved defensive display.

I’m sure across the coaching team we could pick out every player for a special mention this weekend, but in the interest of brevity we’ll keep it to the usual 3 or 4. Starting with defence; Connor Wade and Ben Owen both put in great performances, not least because they had to pick themselves off the ground after taking some nasty knocks, but quickly shook themselves off and got stuck back in to help out their team. Tyler Booth had another great showing, always being the first off the line to get out and harass the opposition and make it difficult for them to go forward. In attack, it was great to see some really good link up play between Charles Carter and Charlie Crabtree, both making strong forwards runs before making good passes to put each other over for a try or two.

Next week we head off for an exciting day hosted by our friends at Sale Sharks; where our Hornets will receive some coaching from the professionals and get to experience playing in front of a crowd of thousands during the half-time interval. It promises to be another excellent day for our U8 squad and we look forward to seeing you there.

Danny, Sara, Rachel and Wayne.