Easts U9 White 33 - 12 Norths U9 Blue (And end of year thankyous and congratulations)

Virtually the same score as the last time the teams played but probably for different reasons.

Today was an opportunity lost with poor execution letting down a solid effort? Like last week the desperation in defence was inspiring with Nick, for example, again competing hard on the line Finn as ever saved many tries, scored one and has perfected his one on one ‘rip and run’ - 2 coaches points.

Roma competed hard as ever and took on some of the forwards’ work. Like Chris, Mitch is playing his first year of Rugby Union and has come on so much. His defence today had the drive of a Mack truck. It seems that now if he’s not sick or recovering he has a blinder.

Chris finished his competition year with another great all round 2 point performance. Not much more that you can say about Angus stampeding down the centre of the field scattering opponents like a movie car chase through a crowded market or dropping on an opponent like the sky has fallen. He’s among the tries and coach’s points week after week but more importantly he’s a true team player, always looking to offload and always looking to encourage his mates.

Ethan and Joseph ended their year on a high note. Ethan was right in the ruck and maul hungry for the ball, even enough to attract a sly punch or two from the opposition that he never backed down from.

Hearty congratulations to our nominations for the NBJB Perpetual Trophies;

Lachie for the Mike Neil Award (Criteria: A player, not necessarily the best player, who displays outstanding club and team loyalty and sportsmanship. Also puts in his or her best at training and games.)
A well deserved nomination to “The Rock” our quietly determined achiever, competing for this award against the whole junior club.

Finn who won the Junior Club Person for his outstanding talent, effort, attitude and loyalty.

Joseph who won the Damon Hampstead Award
(Criteria: A player who shows perseverance under adversity.)
It’s common in sport to beat up faux adversity but here is a boy who’s looked the real thing in the eye and come up on top, wearing that trademark wry smile of his. He’s one of the boys and we all love him - Go the J-Man! He also contributed the excellent drawing of George Gregan that helped us to win the Guard of Honour duties at the Bledisloe Cup.

We all know that these boys deserve their awards but without Aaron’s excellent and heart felt write ups the committee might never have known.

Thanks to George and Logan and Roma Snr for their touch judge work through the year and again to Dan for refereeing so well.

Also thanks to all the players and parents for their easy going cooperation and enthusiasm for all the boys efforts.

Thanks for the third year now for Aaron’s alchemical mix of encouragement and expectation that has worked such wonders with our boys. As we say every year we are very lucky and grateful to have him. We wish him well in his work with the U15 Brisbane side.

Now for the final hit out at the Kenmore Carnival with a combined U9 side, in what has become a yearly tradition.

Finally, hearty congratulations to all in the U9 Gold side who ended Easts Green’s reported 3 year winning streak on Friday night. I wish I’d been able to see it.

See you all next year, Jonathan and Karen (Managers)

Easts U9 Green 56 - 12 Norths U9 Blue

Another gutsy team performance against the unbeaten team in the competition.

No slow start today as the boys came out all guns blazing to have their opponents well and truly rattled. At half time an upset was still possible but thereafter the Blues were sunk by a 4 try blitz by one big fast bopper called Thomas.

This Easts team is well drilled but Norths were holding them, if not for this strong individual performance.

The determination to hold out on the try line in defence, especially in the first half, while Easts continued to mount raid after raid, was a new facet of the team’s grit on display today.

Forwards coach’s points to Angus (2) and Danno (1), Backs points to Finn (1) and Roma (2) for some brave attack and defence.

Angus and Lachie got the tries.

Norths U12 Purple 5 -19 Kenmore Black

Oh what a bitter-sweet game we play.

There is no such thing as a sure thing and the 96ers learnt this lesson on Sunday. We needed to win this match to stay alive and probably thought too little about it; in the end we played the wrong game, under-estimated Kenmore’s skills and ended up on the wrong side of the ledger.

The writing was on the wall from the kick-off, where we saw a committed Kenmore six totally dominate the break-down and consequently hand to an equally well prepared and skilful set of backs, the ball they needed to take advantage of our unwillingness to tackle. It was 7-0 after five minutes and 14-0 after 10 minutes; it was obvious we were in trouble.

A few positional switches and a hasty change in game plan ensured that North’s held fast until the break but then it was time to toss out the plan, the moves and the structure and start again. “Be natural, throw the ball around, you’ve nothing to lose” was the call from the wannabee, professional but now clueless coach – but it was way too late.

When the Kenmorians went in again it was all over but a fine kick from Ben S and an equally great chase from Ned saw purple prayers answered as we scored a great five-pointer.

That made it 19-5 and that was how the score remained until the final whistle blew and an overawed group of disbelieving purple pagans trouped from the field to face the season’s reality.

The reality was this: North’s were beaten by a better side and the character lesson learned from accepting this loss will be one of the best pieces of Rugby education that the lads will ever have.

They’ll hopefully develop a strong resolve to never again lose a “must win” game. In a day of pedestrian tackling Ben B’s bash and regather stood out for him to claim the jersey for the best defensive effort of the day. Zac was great at half-back, five-eight and centre and thoroughly deserved his one point in the best and fairest stakes.

Ben S tried all day and was strong in defence but particularly inventive in attack – he got the two points. The big effort came from Ty who excelled across the park. On a beaten team his effort was close to the best of the year; just sensational.

This week the 96ers face a personal challenge – to beat Pine Rivers! I reckon they’ll triumph and achieve this. We still have the best scrum in town (even against Kenmore, we snitched two tight heads), the best attitude and the most exciting, coach-killing Rugby style.

atch us go and see me next week; the 2015 wallabies are about to set the record straight.

We’re the 96ers, we tackle, we score We’re North’s, we’re purple and Rugby’s our law.

Marto

Norths U9 Blue 34 - 14 Ashgrove U9 Silver

A good all round team effort for a well deserved win, with pile driving defence by Lachie in the forwards the highlight.

Angus scored 2 tries, Finn and Lachie 1 each.

The backing up and speed to the ruck and maul from everyone was a treat, Clancy being rewarded for this with his first ever try in Mini Rugby. Angus (2) and Lachie (1) got the forwards points from the coach, Finn (2) and Chris, who slotted his first conversion (1) in the backs.

Thanks to Dan for his perfect refereeing during the season.

Norths U9 Blue 17 - 51 Sunnybank Gold

It looks like Gridiron - Defensive team on, offensive team off!

Chris’s Dad summed it up as Sunnybank’s team of 14 rolled on the six, yes 6, replacements at a time throughout the game.

Norths, down to 8 players through sickness and injury were certainly up against it. It was no excuse for the now customary slow start but the constant procession of fresh Sunnybank legs certainly snuffed out the Blues fight-back in the second half.

So it was a disappointing score against a team we’ve beaten before at their home ground but you couldn’t be disappointed with the effort from our “Eveready Eight” In true enterprising Blues style the first try, finished by Angus, was a beautiful team effort involving several phases and four runners.

The forward play continues to evolve with a rolling maul close to the Gold line a highlight. All the forwards are rising to the occasion and have been more than competitive in the last three or four games. Ethan was in the thick of the ruck and maul as usual and put his hand up for the 2 forwards points with some courageous charges close to the ruck.

Danno kept up the effort right to the end without a break, making tackles, driving forward and his offloading and halfback skills at the back of the ruck and maul were an eye-opener - A forwards point from Aaron.

Clancy continues with his heavier involvement, bouncing back from a few knocks to also win a forwards point. Chris, a revelation in his first year of rugby, tackled low and hard, set up well in the breakdown and competed tenaciously in the ruck and maul for a backs point from Aaron.

Nick made the two backs points his own after rising from a week in bed with asthma to blitz them with some scorching runs up the sideline. He was very unlucky not to score. His defence shone again, and while outnumbered, he saved a certain try by contesting hard on the line when a Sunnybanker dropped just short.

The opponent didn’t release and Nick earned his team the scrum. Angus put in his usual dominant performance but his speed in getting across and make the tackle was especially impressive this week. Lachie goes up a notch each week and today one run stood out for me. He stole the ball in the contest, and from a standing start, muscled up the blindside past about five defenders in the narrowest of channels.

How he wasn’t tackled out was a miracle. Once in the clear he looked sure to score but was mowed down by a couple of cover defenders, his pace a little sapped by the prior efforts.

Finn and Lachie showed their character to compete hard throughout in frustrating circumstances. Finn hasn’t been out of the scorebook all year but equally impressive is his resolve and good humour in these difficult games.

Roma’s defence and evasion was sorely missed, as were Zach (injured last week) and Mitch (sick) for their mongrel in the ruck and maul. With them all playing the result could well have been reversed.

Norths U12 Purple 22 - 12 Sunnybank White

Rugby is as much about team culture and mental superiority as it is about physical dominance and the 96ers had to respond to a huge mental test to beat Sunnybank at Shaw Road.

The purple pathfinders continued their winning run recording a 22-10 victory with Brandon, Connor, Andrew and Scott all scoring tries. We only managed one conversion – more to do with the tries being scored out wide than anything else – but it is something we need to work on.

North’s showed plenty of character in the win that saw us do our bit to secure the flag, although we still sit in second place. Now we need the leaders (who we drew with last week) to drop a match.

A lot was asked of the team in the first 15 minutes; the Dragons were hungry, the purple posers weren’t; they had possession for most of the opening session and the 96ers had to do a lot of defending. Before we woke up Sunnybank had scored; five minutes later and a fatal error from a dropped ball saw them pounce again. This one they converted and at 12-0 we faced a land-slide.

Those two tries, apart from being embarrassing, constituted a tough mental test for these kids, all born in the same year that the Sex Pistols reformed, but they got up, responded and finished fantastically. The game plan was effective and the team continues to win but the slow start was really just courting impending disaster.

The Dragon’s plan was plain, tie us up in the rucks and take advantage of our reluctance to catch the ball – they killed us at the break-down.

Our slow start was compounded further by a poor kicking game that simply handed possession to the great White’s willing back-line to return the ball in counter-attack mode. This all changed, however, when we started to take our chances, keeping the ball above the ground and letting it beat the opposition. The transformation was dramatic.

New attitudes kicked in, our scrum regained its superiority and the defence stiffened. Four tight heads were claimed and those that weren’t resulted in Sunnybank’s scrum hurtling back-wards, putting their half-back under extreme pressure.

As a result possession from our scrums was clean. Brandon’s try came at the end of a great back-line movement, Connor’s on the end of sheer forward power and Drew’s a gem where he simply pilfered the ball from a back-peddling scrum.

At 15-12 the strain was showing on the now puffing Dragons and Scott took full advantage of this with some great kick ‘n chase efforts. The last resulted in a fine try.

Awards in this match were difficult to give; in the first half no-one would have got a gong whereas in the second all of the revitalized players were in with a chance. Brandon got one point for a busy wing display; Drew 2 points for cheekiness and persistence and Connor the 3 for taking this game by the scruff of the neck. I’m glad the others followed.

The Hit of the Day went to Scott for one of his fine try savers. By the end, the purple post-graduate’s state of mind had expanded considerably; this match was simple one of the best Rugby education courses that this team has ever taken.

 Our mentality is now ship-shape – bring on Pine Rivers.

We’re the 96ers, we tackle, we score We’re North’s, we’re purple and Rugby’s our law.

Marto

Norths U9 Blue 7 - 46 Norths U9 Gold

The Blues have richly talented backs but today was the forwards’ day.

It was fitting that Angus scored the only try and Danno and Clancy saved their best for today to both score 2 coaches points.

“All I could hear was Aaron yelling out ‘Excellent’ whenever I did something. Then after the game he kept hitting me over the head - It was GREAT” Gavin, Gold Coach, commented that they’d never had a physical game like that before and our Gavin, refereeing for the first time this year, was pleased to blow the final whistle “before they kill each other”.

However there was little foul play apart from some accidental high tackles as the boys tried to get a handle on some of the shorter and faster players as they jinked inside. Nonetheless it was a bruising clash.

Zach, the tough little warrior he is, was only stopped by a nasty head clash and an ‘egg’ to do an emu proud.

The whole team earned coach’s points in a highly motivated but unsuccessful tilt at the Gold team.

The Blues have been beaten 3 times this year by Gold so it’s about time I let the victors tell the tale. Thanks to Gavin for stepping in to referee and to Paul & Mike on the Touchline.

Norths U12 Purple 0 - 0 Sunnybank Green

Caboolture U9 Grey 17 - 75 Norths U9 Blue

Coffee in a real mug for $1 and a pie in a packet for breakfast.

This is my sort of place.

While seeing the boys rack up their highest score was fun, it was a shame it was at the expense of this affable bunch. Aaron was quick to notice the opposition’s potential and took no joy in the demolition, though the win was nice.

The boys, on the other hand, thoroughly enjoyed the process with two or three tries to all the usual suspects and four to Nicholas.

Fully fit and fearless he was a sight to see striding out for at least one length of the field effort, reaching back to swat away the outstretched arms of one persistent pursuer.

The backs were flowing freely and all playing their part with Chris (2) and Joseph (1) picking up the coaches points.

The forward all played well to help stuff out any Caboolture revival, the highlight a 2 point performance from Lachie in the pack and 1 point consistency from Zach and Mitch.

Norths U12 Purple 36 - 5 Ashgrove GPS Gold