Rugby builds character, so it’s said. And the temperature at our home ground for this morning’s 8.45am match certainly was character building: just 2 degrees.
But I think perhaps the old saying needs a reworking in light of the way our U8s played today. Perhaps we should say ‘character builds rugby’, because the ticker on display out there today not only did our boys and our club proud, it did rugby proud!
We were fortunate enough on this occasion to be playing Melbourne RUFC, who in the interests of keeping all the players moving, shared a couple of their players with us. And what a ding-dong battle it turned out to be, one of the best matches we’ve played all year!
We did our best to get warm and then Lucas was named Captain and led the team out to play, with Mark subbing as coach for the day (thanks Mark!).
It was a fine knock from the Captain too, with some bustling runs up the centre and good support play.
Nice off-load!
Melbourne got away to a fine start running in two or three unanswered tries. Adonai was injured and had to go off; things were looking crook.
But then Charlie stepped up and made a great tackle and that seemed to lift the boys.
A quick try by ‘Don’t Argue’ Darcy followed after a fine run that featured some of his trademark fends.
He wasn’t the only one starting to warm up. Ezekiel had on his dancing boots and as usual stepped, swerved and dazzled his opponents.
What a step!
A big shout out too for Mitchell in his first game, a great addition to our team. Always close to the action, always working hard, always with a smile on his face: he’s going to fit in just fine! And Mitch, if you can have fun running around out there on a morning like that, you have a lifetime love of rugby ahead of you!
We all know Adonai can run and he got a lovely couple of tries today with his pace. And we know he can tackle and clean out, also on display again today.
But we saw a new quality in Adonai today: grit. Leaving the field early after copping a misplaced knee to the stomach, Adonai returned more determined than ever to get the ball and run in a try, and he didn’t disappoint. Go Jet-Boots!
Which just leaves Billy. Billy was the only boy on the field heard to say, ‘I’m not cold!’ And little wonder, no one worked harder.
Billy discovered a whole new part of his game today that kept us in the match and scored him a beautiful try. It was a master-class in ripping the ball from the opposition and boy did he let it rip!
Well done Billy: our Champion ripper for the day!
Enjoy the holidays boys, we’ll be back Tuesday 18th for training, all welcome!
Kiwi Hawthorn Junior Rugby 