P6 / P7 Fixtures
MATCH REPORTS by Duncan Barrie
Garioch Tournament 27th Sep 2008Last weekend’s festival at home proved to be challenging for the P6/7’s one again with opposition from 3 Ellon teams, Aberdeen Wanderers and Buckie. A round robin competition was run to maximise the number of games available to the players given the odd number of teams present. The first game for Garioch was against a very well drilled and skilful Ellon “A” team and resulted in sizeable defeat – although it has to be said some of the Garioch boys did still seem to be half asleep during this one. Fortunately the first match provided the wake up call required and some much improved performances were given during the next four games. Although none of the matches were won the results were all close with some very good individual performances.
As with the previous week’s Rubislaw tournament the two major areas where Garioch came off second best were in wining the ball at the tackle / ruck situation where more aggression and desire to win the ball are required and positional awareness where there is still a tendency to gravitate toward the ball rather than countering the opposition. The coaches are looking forward to working on these areas in the coming weeks.
One general point to raise from last weekend is to have players arrive in good time for training and games. On Saturday past we were due to have two teams of eight taking part in P6/7 but by 10:05am when the draw was being finalised only 11 or twelve players were present. As a result the second team’s spot was given up to Ellon who had 29 players in attendance by that time. By the time Garioch started the first match there were 15 players present and we finished up with 17 in total by the end of the first match. This resulted in each player getting less game time that they would have liked and made the coaches jobs keeping everyone involved through substitutions that much more difficult. I appreciate that Saturday mornings can be a hectic time with different children’s activities to be catered for but would ask that players arrive in plenty of time for training and more especially festivals where teams have to be finalised and matches agreed by the advertised start times which are quoted on the website and the weekly communications e-mail.
Huntly Tournament 20th Sept 2008
The P6/7’s enjoyed a very successful day on Saturday with Garioch 1 coming second in their group on points difference and Garioch 2 winning their group with two wins and a draw. Unfortunately this meant the two Garioch sides met in the semi-final with Garioch 1 coming out on top with the only score of the game. The exertions of the semi-final plus having had some players guest for the “Mix” team seemed to catch up with Garioch 1 in the final and despite a brave effort in a very good game they lost out to the home side. Garioch 2 came through the play-off game to clinch third place ahead of Deeside. The overall standard of play and commitment shown by the players was very encouraging with good support and offloading out of the tackle much in evidence alongside some strong individual running skills. Garioch also made a tremendous effort in defence during the final with some fine tackles being made on opponents heading for the try-line.
KIT AID Tournament 21st Sept
Sunday proved to be a much tougher proposition, with only 11 players available and the Kit Aid festival split into P6 and P7 sections it was decided that the Garioch team should enter the P7 section out of fairness to the other clubs with teams of all P6’s.
This may have proved to be a step too far for some of the lads coming up against well drilled Grammar and Mackie P7 sides. The boys did however stick in well and managed to reduce the margin of defeat in the second game against each of the opposing teams – even if the arrival of a squad of Cheerleaders did seem to distract some of the boys (and the referee!) during the final game. The rugby played by both Grammar and Mackie showed the boys the standard they need to aim for and gave the coaches some pointers for areas to work on in the coming weeks.
