U11’s Honiton V Barnstaple

Barnstaple U11 made the long trip down to play Honiton today and luckily had extra time to recover from the journey due to a slight mix up with pitch scheduling!

The visitors dominated some of the early play and scored an excellent try. However, in what is becoming a repeated theme, this stung Honiton into action.

Some good support play and passing created a gap that Thomas Vallender ran through to score. Worryingly, he didn’t get up for a bit, but just as everyone started to get concerned he then got up and jogged back saying he was just tired!

There was more good play by both teams, in defending and attacking play. However, Honiton had the edge in handling skills and continually moved the ball into space where they were breaking through.

Barnstable’s last ditch cover tackling was impressive in preventing a number of tries with Bo Beaken, Charlie Brittlebank and Sam Hair all knocked into touch when they thought they were destined to score.

Unfortunately, for Barnstable, there were a lot more runners, which lead to Honiton pulling away. There were also some very interesting tries.

Previously Honiton’s kicking tactics have backfired but today they actually worked! First Noah Lowman launched the ball downfield from near his line, which Freddie Long managed to get to first. He picked it up on the run and then outpaced the defenders to score which was an impressive bit of skill and pace. Later in the game, Thomas Vallender kicked the ball through (despite having an overlap..!!!!) and when the Barnstable player fell on it and placed it nicely back, Thomas stepped over, picked it up and ran on to score.

Player of the match went to Charlie Brittlebank for a great all round performance, with some great tackling in addition to his accomplished attacking game. Runner up went to Noah Lowman for another impressive all round game, especially in winning a number of 50/50 balls on the floor in heavy conditions. We weren’t entirely sure whether Noah was trying to win the ball or just happy to be diving in to the mud, but either way it worked well for his team.

It was great to see good rugby being played by both sides, and they may well meet again if the Defenders cup at Crediton when it finally goes ahead.

Next week will be a big challenge playing Bridport at home. Earlier in the season, Honiton sneaked an away win and no doubt they’ll be up for revenge.