The u7s played 4 mini-games this week against a well organised Burton u7s outfit. Trentham fielded a total of 7 players including: Elliott, Jacob, Joseph, Mason, Sam, Stan and Zeb. Burton arrived with 12 players and so it was agreed that they would split their squad in to 2 teams of 6 and play 6-a-side against the Trentham boys, who we obviously rotated a substitute on and off for every half game. This way all the Burton players got to play 2 games and had a good run out.
In the first game although the first half was close, Burton easily outscored the Trentham lads and they looked by far the more effective team unit. The second game was a bit closer with Burton still outscoring Trentham although defensively the u7s started to work a bit better. In game three Trentham seemed to turn the corner, tagged very well and traded with Burton on a try for try basis and thus drew the game. In the fourth game they played very well indeed and had improved to the extent that they actually won this one.
The challenge this week was getting the u7s to work as a unit. They have some talented players but don’t yet pass the ball around enough, virtually all of them preferring to go and score a glorious ‘solo’ try every time they get the ball. One of the half-time chats tried to reverse this somewhat blinkered approach and young Stan made me chuckle when he took the advice literally and decided that he didn’t need to take even one step with the ball from now on but simply kept shipping it to the player next to him! Across all the games the Trentham players never managed to get more than two passes or phases of possession before either scoring or losing possession. We will have to work on this a little and hopefully get them to the point where they are acting as a more cohesive unit (i.e. like the u8s are actually managing on a regular basis now).
Generally, they are a very enthusiastic and excitable little group of players who evidently really enjoy the game. Zeb mainly captained the side this week and he has a nice calm, unruffled air about him in this role. Everyone scored at least one try, they were not offside as much as they have been in the past (they aren’t yet perfect on this front but did show genuine progress / awareness) and as they warmed up they became better at spreading out in defence and as a consequence they tagged more effectively.
Man of the match this week was a close run affair between the ‘nippy’ Elliott and ever enthusiastic Mason both of whom played particularly well on an individual basis. Elliott just pips it on this occasion with his ‘sniping’ runs and a couple of really opportunistic tries when he scored for Trentham against the run of play. Thanks as ever to all the friends and family who turned up to watch the u7s have a good run about.