YOUTH RUGBY ROUND UP, SUNDAY 19th JANUARY 2025

Guildford Rugby Club

YOUTH RUGBY ROUND UP, SUNDAY 19th JANUARY 2025

YOUTH MATCH REPORTS, SUNDAY 19th JANUARY

U16 Blues beat Old Ruts 36-24 in Round 1 of the Hampstead Cup

The U16 Blues put in an excellent performance against an Old Ruts side who have played together for some time. We started strongly running in 3 tries before half time (HT 17-10), and didn’t take our foot off the pedal in the second half running another 3 tries. Old Ruts battled hard, but our forwards were just too much for them. A fantastic effort by a team that haven’t played together before.

U16 Yellows lost to Wimbledon 22-12 in Round 1 of the Quins Cup

The U16 Yellows had an extremely physical encounter against a strong Wimbledon side (last year’s Quins Cup winners) and did well to open the scoring. Wimbledon battled back to even the score line, but a patient multi-phase attack took Guildford into a 12-7 lead. Wimbledon kept us pinned in our 5m for multiple phases with a sustained onslaught, but Guildford’s ferocious defence was impenetrable up until half time. Wimbledon started the 2nd half with a quick try to level the score. The physical battle continued, and sadly what we thought was a fantastic sliding try was disallowed. The game was nip and tuck and could have gone either way, but Wimbledon just edged it in the last 15 minutes. A gritty performance that truly honoured the Guildford shirt.

U15s Quins Cup

Guildford 79 Rosslyn Park 14

U14s

A hard fought 39-12 win for U14 Boys against Old Reigatians in Tier 1, and a very credible 12-12 draw in Tier 3 away at Farnham.

U12s Boys

Guildford "Blues" 7 – London Irish 5

Guildford U12 Blues team had a cracking match against London Irish in their first Waterfall Cup match on Sunday. Both sides were up for the match, but London Irish started quicker and were soon a couple of scores up. Guildford did not let their heads drop though, and rallied with some excellent rucking and counter-rucking to pin the opposition back and go 3-2 up by half-time. The balance swung back the other way in the third quarter, with London Irish pushing the ball out wide and keeping possession to score another set of well-worked tries and go 5-3 ahead. Guildford rallied again though, making progress with strong running into contact followed by some mazy running as the opposition tired and space started to open up. A blitz of tries late on made the final score 7-5 to Guildford. Coaches and spectators from both sides all agreed it had been a great match, and enjoyed it so much that a friendly for next season is already in the works.

Huge thank you to the Guildford coaches and great support on the touchline, but all credit to the players for putting in such a strong performance over the whole match. Still improvements to be made by this Guildford team, but if they play this way and show this level of resilience in their other games they’ll be a match for anyone!

Sutton & Epsom 0 – Guildford "Golds" 6

What a game on Sunday at Sutton & Epsom! In Guildford U12s first competitive cup game, the boys really showed what they are made of. In the opening five minutes, S&E ran the ball at us with wave after wave of runners but the boys tackled them to a standstill. In the end, our opposition were pushed back and surrendered the ball, which led to our first try. That was the story of the first half with S&E winning lots of ball and running hard only to face a wall of blue-shirted tacklers.

As an attacking threat Guildford grew into the game at the end of the first half, our superior core skills and aggression led to tries, and comfortably 3-0 up. The boys were loving the prospect of running into contact and smashing their way through!

At the start of the 2nd half, unrelenting pressure from the U12s saw three more brilliant tries. The pick of the bunch was a superb cross-field kick from George Swayne at fly-half, which was then intelligently tapped back from Tristan on the wing for Tom Lewis to pick up and dot down. Quite frankly, if England has scored that try, they would be showing replays for weeks! I wish the coaches had something to do with it, but the boys worked it all out on their own! Outstanding! The brilliant tries were set up by hard, unrelenting rucking and commitment from every single player. This was a team performance and there is a lot to build on for the coming cup games with us winning comfortably 6-0 in the end. It will be great to see what the boys are capable of in the next few weeks.

A special shout goes out to coaches Nick and Arnie who did a great job of warming up and prepping the boys!

U12s Grizzlies

The U12 Grizzlies who are clustering with Camberley and Dorking to form Dorkfordley played well but went down 7-12 to Guildfordians/Chobham/Streatham & Croydon in their round 1 Quins Cup match at home on Sunday. The opposition fielded some strong individual runners who were tough to bring down. Our girls however, strung together some lovely phases with deft passing and hard running of their own, resulting in some wonderful tries, they fought robustly at the rucks and showed plenty of potential.

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