Match Report for Sunday 21st September

Twickenham 17  Grasshoppers U14s 12

Grasshoppers' new U14 side took 20 boys to Twickenham for our first pre-season match in glorious West-London sunshine. A good core of players has been retained from last year and it is pleasing to see a few new and returning faces.

Grasshoppers started with the sun behind them and a strong front row of Jack, Scott and new addition Gurveer with Jo Butler and Saroop in behind them immediately made an impact on the opposition with some excellent scrumaging, dominating their opposite pack. Behind the scrum Rees showed off his good handling skills to get centres Jonathan and Buster moving forward. Grasshoppers got good field position with strong running, in particular from Big Jack and Captain-for-the-day Stevenson, both of whom were well supported by open-side Mikael and Number 8 Kieran. However, all too often good work by Grasshoppers was undone by failure to control the ball and bad, one-handed passing and this turnover possession kept Twickenham alive.

It was Grasshoppers who scored first, started by an excellent break from Rees who was dragged down on the Twickenham 22. Good support play from the forwards saw the ball recycled and set down the line for speedster Jordan to cross for the try, to be converted by Rees.

Twickenham struck back, almost immediately, with a try of their own. Grasshoppers' defensive like looked secure, but poor tackling allowed Twickenham to sweep over for a try of their own, though it was not converted. The half time score looked promising, then, with Grasshoppers ahead 5-7.

The second half changes saw Jonathan come into second row from the centres and he immediately made his mark stealing a lineout close to the Twickenham line and driving forward. Good work from props Keshal and Joe and the rest of the Grasshoppers pack saw them surge towards the line, resulting in a try for new second row Jamal, though the conversion eluded Grasshoppers.

Twickenham, though, kept coming back using their big runner to smash through the grasshoppers line and in spite of some keen defensive work from centres Tom and Boyd, Twickenham sucked in enough defenders to give themselves acres of space out wide and duly went in for two tries, the latter converted.

So with only minutes remaining on the clock Grasshoppers started to move the ball wider. The backs were well marshalled by Tom and Billy-Ray at 9 and 10 which allowed ground to be made up the pitch, with some strong running from winger Drummond. As the seconds ticked down Tom pulled the ball from a ruck on the left of the pitch and put it out to Billy Ray, who put in a long pass to Jack on the right. Jack charged through the line and looked to have got the winning score, only for the referee to declare that the ball had been held up over the line and blow for full time. Final score Twickenham 17 - 12 Grasshoppers.

All-round, a pleasing performance for the first match, but there is still much to work on ahead of the start of the league fixtures!

Best and fairest:
1st - Rees (decent game from both 10 and 15. Good attacking and counter-attacking running and good defensive cover)
2nd - Jonathan (Solid game at both 12 and 4)
3rd - Jack (Usual bullish performance, though difficult to give him more than 3rd as he only play 3/4 of the game)