On a cold crisp yet sunny Sunday morning 20 U14 boys descended on the Garden City of Letchworth for this Middlesex & Herts League match. After a little bit of bedding down, the team started to mow through the muddy grass, did a little landscaping and uprooted the home-grown talent from Letchworth to secure a bonus point win.

The match started slowly for Wasps, with Letchworth using their big and quick players to great effect keeping the ball inside the Wasps 22 for the first 10 minutes with a series of driving mauls and effective rucks. At one point they gained ground up to the 5, but the Wasps U14s were determined not to concede and eventually caused a knock on from Letchworth allowing the team to gain possession.

A series of drives involving no.8 Jordan, no.6 Mark and Captain and loose head Ossama drove the ball up to the half way line. The ball broke on the Letchworth 22 into loose play and was secured by a diving Mark with other forwards supporting. The ball eventually came back to Ossama who took off on the blind side, after an exchange of passes with winger Tom (he of the Sparey spin), Ossama received the ball on the 5 and handing off 2 players he went over in the corner.

If the first score had an element of power the second was brute force: another infringement by Letchworth just inside their 22, quick penalty by Ossama who handed off 4 players to drive over the line. Ossama completed his 10 minute hat trick: his 3rd try resulted from his chase and charge down of an attempted clearance from the Letchworth fly half, the ball broke, Ossama gathered the ball and ran under the posts.

From the kick off the Wasps gathered the ball deep in their own 22, with Letchworth following up quickly and holding play in the 22. Wasp struggled to gain clean possession, but eventually the ball was worked to the back of the ruck and scrum half Theo put in an excellent box kick right along the touch line to take us up to the Letchworth 15. Now it was the turn of Ashraf to stretch his legs, forwards secured the ball and drove up to the Letchworth 22 with tight head Alex and flanker Antonio exchanging passes. The ball came to the back of the ruck, a pick up by Mark dragged in their forwards as the ball went to ground Letchworth hacked it away into Wasps half, Full back Yusuf was first to the ball, who passed onto outside centre Connor and Ashraf picked up the ball bang on half way, at that point he had only one thing on his mind and after rounding the first close tackler it was then a series pace vs pace as Ashraf arched round the Letchworth defines to touch down, the shout “GASSED” went up from the try scorer (that boy is so moist!) 2 successful conversions from fly half Fergus made it 26-0 to Wasps at half time.

The half time talk was to maintain the intensity, more commitment in the rucks and get the ball to the backs quicker. It seems that Letchworth also had a strong talk at half time and came out with ferocious intent and drove the ball up to the Wasps 5, from the resulting ruck the no.8 spotted a gap and drove through the blindside to touch down.

Wasps replied quickly with 2 well worked backs tries. A long pass from Fergus releasing Connor who then missed a pass to get the ball to Ashraf who ran from his own half along the touchline to score his second. His 3rd followed quickly after in similar fashion, this time a break from Yusuf, released Jordan who took in 2 players and onto Ashraf who ran in from the 22 to touch down under the posts.

After an exchange of tries first by Letchworth and then by no.8 Jordan who powered his way through the Letchworth defence for another try for the forwards. By this stage frustrations had boiled over but Ossama, Mark and Fergus kept the Wasps boys calm and helped deliver the 9h try. With the Letchworth just in the Wasps half Ossama took down the runner, got to his feet and recycled and secured the ball for Wasps, it was picked up by Alex, who built up a head of steam to hand off players and touch down, he was supported right to the line by Mark, Tom and sub Rohan.

With 10 minutes left Mark took over the captaincy from Ossama who was replaced by Charlie, he was instrumental in the next try, picking up the ball in the Wasps 22, he side stepped 2 players and took the ball into ruck surrounded by 4 Letchworth players, this created space outside, the backs exploited and Connor went over.

A good performance by the boys

Positive: Finishing, power by the forwards and second half passing by the backs

Things to work on – aggression in the ruck, recycling ball from the breakdown

Man of the match – good finishing from Ashraf but today was Ossama’s day for his 10 minute hat trick against the run of play and leadership.

Scrums: Letchworth - Wasps

Won: . . . . . 5 . . . . . - . . . . . 8

Against: . . 0 . . . . . - . . . . . 3

Line outs

Won: . . . . . 3 . . . . . - . . . . . 0

Against: . . 0 . . . . . - . . . . . 3

Tackles

Made: . . . . 77 . . . . . - . . . . . 45

Missed: . . 30 . . . . . - . . . . . 27

The U14Bs also fielded a team, at home to Watford, and came out deserved winners by 34-14!