Guildford Rugby Club
U14 Grizzlies Battle Through Surrey 10s, Sunday 12th November
On Sunday 12th November, our U14 Grizzlies (girls) team spent the day at the Surrey County 10-a-side festival, hosted by Wimbledon. They came away with two losses and two draws, which might not sound like the best return for a hard day’s work, but this would belie a very impressive team performance against some of the strongest clubs in the county.
Our first match was against local rivals Guildfordians who had teamed up with Streatham-Croydon. Although tightly fought throughout, we missed a few tackles early on and allowed Guildfordians to build a lead of 3 tries to nil. Right at the end, some smart tactical kicking from Millie helped to build a platform for our captain Eira to fight her way over the line and claw one back: final score 3-1 to Guildfordians.
Our next match was a nail-biting contest against Harlequins Amateurs. After some frantic end-to-end action, the half-time score stood at 2 tries apiece. In the second half, we took on an 4-3 lead but were unlucky to concede another try in the dying seconds, to give a very fair 4-4 final score line. Our try-scorers were Phoebe and Millie from Guildford, and Mia and Sophia from our cluster partners Camberley.
Next up were Farnham, who were always going to present a strong challenge, and particularly so since some matches running behind schedule meant we had to play on directly after the Quins game, while Farnham had enjoyed a rest. Still our girls were determined in defence and held their own until the third quarter of the match when they started to tire, and Farnham moved into a 4-2 lead. Our tries came from Millie and Lily B.
Our final match was against Chobham, who are the reigning Surrey champions in this age group. To be honest I wasn’t expecting too much from this fixture: we had faced Chobham two weeks previously in very wet and muddy conditions at Camberley, and got hammered, which followed the pattern of previous years. But on this occasion, Chobham were looking tired after a bruising encounter with Old Reigatians, and our girls sensed an opportunity.
Again the match was tightly fought throughout, with neither side able to dominate. Chobham took a 1-0 lead and seemed likely to hold that to the final whistle. But with a minute to go, our scrum-half Iona spotted that the opposition were failing to mark the blind side. So at our next attacking ruck, we moved all our backs to the open side, and left the blind empty for Millie (playing at first receiver) to run into and storm up the length of the pitch to score under the posts. Final score 1-1 and great to see such intelligent rugby being played.
Overall it was a fighting performance by the whole team, with a number of players really stepping up to the mark and supporting each other across all areas of the pitch. It all speaks well for the team’s prospects in the Surrey Cup matches that will come after Christmas.
Elsewhere our U12 Grizzlies were also in action at Wimbledon in a 4-way cluster with Camberley, Quins and Teddington - full report to follow. And our U10 girls had their first away fixture of the season at Horsham: the girls loved getting muddy with a game of tackle rugby and bulldog to finish.
If there are any girls out there who would like to play more rugby (from U9 up to U18) please do get in touch at .
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