Mud and guts away at Aylesford!

Aylesford U13’s 20 Folkestone U13s 5

Sunday 31st January 2016 Report from Neil Adams
Mud and guts

The Folkestone boys this week took a trip up the M20 to visit last week’s opponents Aylesford. This time to play the Aylesford lads that hadn’t been a part of last week’s trip to Folkestone.

The drizzling rain and heavy muddy pitch might have been expected to put the Folkestone lads off their game today, and with Aylesford leading at half time 15-0 that could have been the games description, but it wasn’t.
Folkestone are developing a tremendous ability to play for each other and this continued today. The first half was marked by 3 unanswered tries form Aylesford, but Folkestone could and should have added to the score line if they’d have defended a little higher up the pitch and made some of their possession count.
Joseph Faiers was notable for some tenacious graft towards the end of the first half, which might have been rewarded but for the referee’s whistle signalling the end of the period.

After a brief team talk at half time the boys once again returned to the pitch, clearly determined to improve on their first half efforts which they achieved with aplomb. The half saw Folkestone pressing Aylesford much harder, scoring a massive try involving virtual every member of the team. Utilising some impressive driving from the forwards, the boys made their decisions wisely, shipping the ball out, where before, an individual might have tried alone. The final pass gave the ball to Joseph Faiers who finally placed the ball over the line. 15-5.
The sheer effort in scoring the try left the Folkestone lads vulnerable to the Aylesford attack and they duly score taking the overall final score to 20-5.

Each player played with guts today, each player from the most comfortable to those still becoming more confident with the full size pitch worked incredibly hard improving once again. One notable thing to mention about the game was the number of players playing outside of their usual positions. Each boy adapted well, Max Pavett was particularly highlighted by the coaches at the end of the game for the ease with which he slipped in to the flanker role.

Coaches Terry Holt and Steve Brown decided to award Max Pavitt their man of the match accolade.

Team: Ryan Adams, Ethan Bailey, Dominic Bowden, Cameron Brown, Tom Cloke, Alfie Dove, Joseph Faiers, Leon Gurr, Ethan Holt, Tim Izod, George James, Theo Mead-Topley, Tristan Parmenter, Max Pavitt, Leon Santer, Nikesh Thapa-Chhetri, Harry Wells, Toby Yemm
Try Scorer: Joseph Faiers