U13Bs earn first win in thrilling derby
By Arthur Hanna
On the morning of the 11th of October, Hampton’s U13 rugby players woke up knowing that they were about to take on local rivals, Halliford.
The boys arrived at 8:45 am and went through some warmup drills, including passing, tackling, also plays that they planned to use in the game. The U13B team were yet to pick up a win this season so they were all extremely focused before kick-off.
Hampton won the toss and elected to kick off, instantly putting Halliford under pressure with passes from new fly-half Arthur Hanna onto the centres, Akshaj Anand and Yuchen Liu at inside and outside centre respectively. Anand made a long break after a scrum on our line and found Liu outside him to put Hampton 5-0 up. Hampton continued this pressure and captain Ollie Jones went over to extend Hampton’s lead. To make matters worse for Halliford, Hampton’s number 8, Finn Green, muscled his way over a couple of Halliford defenders, with the scoreboard now reading 15-0 in Hampton’s favour. However, they were not in the clear just yet. The Halliford left-winger used his raw pace to speed around the outside of Thomas Dunbar-Lee at right-wing and past David Mitchell at full-back. He slid into the corner to make the score look very different as the first half neared its conclusion. 15-5. Halliford then scored again to make the score 15-10. Halliford could have had another if it wasn’t for Arthur Hanna’s try saving tackle as the Halliford winger raced towards the line. Hampton then ended the first half in style as Yuchen Liu made one of his many long runs to put Hampton 20-10 ahead as the whistle blew.
Hampton started the half quickly once again as Akshaj Anand went all the way from his try line to extend Hampton’s advantage. 25-10. Sebastian Young then scored from close range to put Hampton very much in the ascendancy. 30-10. The match was not over. As they had done in the first half, Halliford came from what seemed to be an impossible scoreline to make the match close again. 30-20. Hampton scored once more to halt the Halliford momentum and to make the score 35-20. With 5 minutes remaining, Halliford needed 3 tries to even draw the match, and in doing so completing one of the greatest ever comebacks. However, before Hampton even realised what was going on, Halliford has already scored two of the three required tries. With 45 seconds left Hampton needed to keep hold of the ball. Then, Hampton knocked it forward and to their delight the referee blew the final whistle; Hampton were relieved more than anything.
The U13B team now will get a well-deserved beak as they go into half term with a win!
Categories
