Marlow victory by 1 converted try

On a bright crisp morning the U13s headed out to Marlow for our first away game after a run of 4 weeks at home. After losing heavily to Marlow last year, we weren't a little concerned as to how the boys would fare in what turned into a hard fought match. The lead changed frequently, and being just one try behind at the final whistle was a fair result.

From the start Marlow were aggressive and capitalised on the advantage that the hill in the middle of the pitch gave them. Despite an initial push by the ‘ensians boys, they kept us in our half while capitalising on the advantage of the hill by breaking through our defence after 8 minutes and ug the downhill run to go 5 points. We kept going and saw some great efforts from Pierre, Dylan and Robbie (making his 'ensians debut) who all got some superb tackles in to keep the score at 5-0 after 20 minutes.

A short break and change of ends gave 'ensians the advantage of the hill and we used it effectively. A couple of minutes into the second period of play saw us take a scrum from a line out error that we won. The ball went out to the backs, down the line to Benji who ran in our first try – even if he did nearly lose possession as he tried to get under the posts. Max kicked a solid conversion, to put us 7-5 up. 'Ensians spirits were lifted and we had a few minutes of steady play with the ball finally making it’s way out to the wing to let Pierre use his speed and the downhill run to put the ball down in the corner narrowly avoiding a couple of tackles on the way. 12-5. Realising that the hill helped, we continued to keep Marlow in their half and No. 8, Brad, won the ball from a ruck and again used the hill to build momentum while handing off 4 players to take us 17-5 up. Marlow managed a last-ditch push in the second 20 minutes and pushed us into our half on the flat part of the pitch and were finally rewarded. We retained the edge and it was 17-10 to ‘ensians at the whistle.

The final period of play was 2 ten-minute halves. Marlow started down hill and really pushed us hard. The boys spent most of the time on the back foot from with the hill and tired legs working against us. Marlow put three tries past us in quick succession, one following a quick penalty where ‘ensians weren’t even facing the opposition. This took the score to 17-22 and gave us a short-lived wake-up call where some good play by the backs got the ball to Benji who ran in a try to even the score at 22-22. In the final minutes of the period Marlow caught us off guard again to score and convert. 29-22 when we changed ends for the last ten minutes. Both sides were looking tired and honours were shared with one converted try each and a final score of 36-29

While we missed some of our boys at a county training session, Bucks also had a county day and Marlow were also missing a similar number of players. The score was a fair representation of a match where we squandered a few opportunities and let Marlow take advantage of our lapses in concentration.