St Austell -v- Perranporth Under 11's - 13th October 2013

This was a tough first game of the season for Perranporth who found themselves on an extremely wide pitch but with only 10 men. St Austell were quickest at taking advantage of the pitch and quickly started to move the ball out to their fast backs. Perranporth also played up hill in the first half and this made the game quite exhausting at times. The Perranporth set pieces were good with the Front Row of Alex, Josh and Luke holding well against the much bigger St Austell players. The new second row paring of Huw and Lewis were also very good in the set pieces and line outs where they won some good ball despite giving away a lot of height to the St Austell team. However, Perranporth struggled to get the ball recycled quickly to Jamie at scrum half and a number of times they won clean ball, only to lose it again in rucks or mauls. St Austell found their quickest runners a number of times and were able to run in a few quick tries before Huw had to go off injured. The team then re-shuffled with Harvey coming into second row and Trey, Jack and Donny shuffling across into the midfield to join Joel at Fly Half. After the halt time break, the Perranporth team started strongly and really showed they were not going to give up. They maintained some pressure and won some good ball, again particularly from the scrummage. In a cruel twist, the pack took a great ball "against the head" only to see it pop out into the hands of the St Austell scrum half who scampered through for a score. Perran eventually crossed the try line with Joel finding space, firstly down the right hand side and then after another solid scrum down the left. Both teams kicked the ball intelligently and only 1 conversion was missed out of 10 attempts! Special mentions go to Jack for his first competitive match, to Lewis, playing his first game in the forwards, to Jamie for his excellent tackles and to Joel for taking his first conversions in front of a crowd (2 out of 2 isn't bad !). Captain Josh lead from the front and the whole team refused to give up. The second half was certainly very close. The team can build on this performance and if they get the ball out quicker they can certainly be a match for most teams. Perranporth Tries: Joel (2). Cons: Joel (2)=