Wasps A V Bank of England and Wasps B V Pinner & Grammarians

Wasps U13A V Bank of England A and Wasps U13B V Pinner & Grammarians at home
Sunday 30 September 2012
Our first league matches in the Middlesex & Herts League. The A team are in division 3 and the league tables can be viewed on the Middlesex & Herts website.
It was an exciting but apprehensive morning, as we obviously wanted to do well, but how would be cope with a full size pitch, 50 minutes of play, without any real match practice, being the first game of the season?
Match1: Wasps B V Pinner & Grammarians
Wasps started pretty well and for 5 minutes we put the opposition under a little pressure. After that everything slipped away. In the first half Pinner scored six unanswered tries, due to having some very fast big runners and generally good ball skills. However when pressured by our forwards, they tended to unravel a bit and we scored two tries in the second half from James and Olly, when we put them on the back foot and they made mistakes. However they were the better team and they ran straight through us. The young referee did a good job and penalised both teams on many occasions for coming in at the side at rucks, which we were generally late for anyway. A lot of confusion was evident about what to do about taking penalties, which lost us several opportunities, as we were slow taking tap penalties. Physically Pinner was a bigger side and there was some talk this was their A team, as they could not raise two teams. Wasps were also reluctant to relieve the pressure in our 22, by kicking the ball back up field. James did however boot the ball on one occasion very hard and this immediately took all the pressure off and rattled their defence. Two of our players came off injured and as always the players fought bravely.
Final score: 55:10 to Pinner & Grammarians
Match 2: Wasps A V Bank of England A
This was certainly a great start to our season. We had beaten BOE last year 10:0, but from the start Wasps played BOE out of the game. Our passing was good, line outs good, we won all our scrums, and everything flowed. No major injuries. The tries kept coming so fast it was hard to keep up. It is difficult to say how we would fare against the stronger sides in the league, because we were allowed to get away with a few mistakes as well. Nicki scored the first try, Alexander G scored three more, George, Fin scored two (one was nearly dropped but caught again, before he hit the deck), Axel, Charlie Morgans, Ethan and I think Louis scored the last one. Charlie Morgan did a great job as fly half despite a heavy cough, converting five. He had some very hard kicks to contend with in the corners, on the full size pitch, which I think even Jonnie Wilkinson would have struggled with. Isaiah did a brilliant job on the wing. A jubilant side then adjourned for a much anticipated shirt and tie lunch, which I understand was a bit of an anti-climax as BOE disappeared and the food was a bit late.
Final score 63:0 to Wasps