Under 11s at the Canterbury Festival

Under 11s travelled to Canterbury on a lovely sunny October day, the squad suffered a couple of last minute injuries, one involving lasagne and another involving too much pre match bedroom excitement, we won't name names.

Mild disappointment on arrival to find us in a group with only two other teams and also quite a challenging group with Ashford and Blackheath. Decision made to play slightly longer matches, even though this would mean the young Stones facing Blackheath minutes after a bruising encounter with our local rivals.

First game v Ashford, very solid defence from both teams, Ashford had most of the possession but struggled to get through a strong Folkestone pack, when they got wide they were snaffled out by good defending by all of the young Stones but as Ashford enjoyed the majority of possession they probed and probed and eventually, albeit a little fortuitously, one of their junior man mountains forced his way over the Folkestone line to score. Another battle of the forwards in the second half, Folkestone line-outs improving but Stones didn't get the ball out and run with it and so didn't really threaten to equalise, although there appeared to have been the opportunity to run the ball on a number of occasions. Final score Ashford win by a single try 5-0.

Second match, straight after v Blackheath. The previous physical encounter had sapped some energy from the Folkestone players and of course, Blackheath were fresh on with the benefit of their coach witnessing the previous game and adjusting the Blackheath tactics to suit. Blackheath played some lovely running rugby from the start, they passed the ball well, had big fast lads who could handle well throughout the team, they kicked into space and scored tries. The refereeing didn't favour Folkestone but that's no excuse, nor really is the fact that our boys had no real break after the tough Ashford game but I've mentioned both points anyway. I should personally apologise at this point for losing the team a fair play point by having a bit of a moan at the referee, right in front of His Excellency, the Chairman too, not the best example to set our boys who thankfully behave a lot better than I do. Anyway, Blackheath took a quick lead and despite some good tackling, more good line-outs and a genuinely determined effort throughout the Folkestone squad, Blackheath scored 6 tries without reply and therefore won 30-0.

And that was that, two matches down and the festival was over, roll on the East Kent Festival in two weeks time.

Squad: Billy Evans, Ryan Adams, George James, Leon Gurr, Lewis Hammerton, Toby Walton, Archie Green, Ethan Holt, Cohen Double, Thomas Reina, Tristan Parmenter, Alfie Dove, Thomas Cloke, Joseph Faiers, Cameron Brown, Kian Supple, Kieran Dorrell.