Last Tuesday we traveled the short distance to Guiseley to play a very competitive match. Our lads showed outstanding defensive capabilities against some big units, and this provided a solid base for us to utilise our possession effectively and dominated the second half to win 38-15. 4 tries coming from the outstanding Robbie A and one each for captain Charlie I and Sam S. The quote of the day went to Sam K who said to me ' sir looking at these I think you need to get us free food in the restaurant at lunch'.

Following on, yesterday I took 8 lads to play sevens at Wharfedale Rugby club in Grassington. Despite coming up against tough opposition in Ermysteads' Ilkley and Upper Wharfedale in the most atrocious conditions spirits and performance level stayed high. The lads enjoyed their sausage butties afterwards.

A couple of weeks ago we travelled to play Ilkley and despite the hosts being made up of the entire Ilkley Rugby club u12s, our boys matched them physically and competed very well. Ben Harvey S scoring two great tries in a 5-2 defeat.

The team then travelled to Guiseley to play a round Robin festival against the hosts, local rivals Beckfoot and BBG. Again some committed defence and support of each other resulted in a good win against Guiseley in our first game with Ne scoring 3 tries with amazing footwork. Game two was trickier and we found it harder to match the size and strength of BBG, eventually losing 8-3 with tries fro. Ben, a great length of the field run by Kiyam and Jack A.

The final match was for local bragging rights and after a mixed start to the game, Ben scored the first of 4 tries against Beckfoot. From here we dominated further and scored 4 further tries from Kiyam (2),Jack and a debut score for Seb W.

The lads told me they enjoyed it and can not wait to play again. Many of the team do not play outside of school and it was a pleasure to watch then develop.

Thanks to anyone who is still reading, next week the Year 9s will be in action in the annual Ilkley 7s on Wednesday.

Mr Swann