A Tough Battle with Caldy and the Cold

The warm-ups were cut short to get the games on as quickly as possible, and the boys were clearly feeling the cold right from the off.

Both clubs had enough for two teams, and so there were 4 matches to entertain the crowd.

Warrington Reds: Adam, Archie, Cameron, Charlie B, Harry, George, Jack, Joe, Stephen
Warrington Greens: Ben, Cameron, Eddie, Gareth, Gregor, Josh, Max, Michael, Sam S

Warrington Reds 8 - 9 Caldy 'A'
Tries: Jack 4, Adam 2, Charie B, Harry

A very close opening game for the Reds was just edged by Caldy.

Harry Smithers on his debut opened the scoring for Warrington, and the defensive effort was good forcing a turnover, but the tries were evenly traded up to half time when it was 4-4.

At the break a mug of Bovril would have been welcome, but sadly there was only water.

The second half continued in the same way, with Jack outstanding for his 4 tries, many off some great backing up and offloads - special mention to Adam and Stephen for many of these.

Warrington Greens 10 - 8 Caldy B
Tries: Eddie 3, Josh 3, Michael 2, Max, Sam

Great start, scoring from 1st set of possession and then forcing Caldy to turn the ball over for us to score again.

Defence continued to be excellent in the 1st half with everyone getting involved despite cold hands forcing more mistakes from Caldy and turnover ball.

Sluggish after the restart, with Caldy scoring a couple of tries before we got going. We managed to pull ourselves round however to keep our noses in front overall.

Warrington Reds 9 - 8 Caldy B
Tries: Adam 2, Charlie B, Harry 2,Joe 2, Jack

Some excellent running and really good support play saw us score 3-4 tries by supporting the initial break so that despite last ditch defence from Caldy, we were on hand to take the pass and score.

Harry continued his impressive first outing, scoring 2 more tries and putting in some good defence.

Jack scored a good try before a freak injury forced him off just before half time (Caldy ref stood on his foot).

Close at the end but we had enough to keep in front.

Warrington Greens 8 - 10 Caldy A
Tries: Gregor 2, Michael 2, Cameron, Eddie, Josh, Sam
The cold was really becoming a fctor by now, with the team in various degrees of discomfort.

This was another tight game, with the score being 4-4 at half time, but the focus and intensity visibly drained away in the second half as the players eagerly awaited the final whistle, and this allowed Caldy to take advantage to run out winners.

Summary: Caldy were a well organised squad who worked really hard in defence, and the overall match ended with 2 wins a piece, and fittingly the aggregate score was level, which I think was a fair result. I'm looking forward to playing them more regularly in the future.

I don't think the boys will play in colder conditions, and it was odd to see them asking to be substituted and then not wanting to come back on.

Jack's freak injury lead to a visit to the club physio, but it wasn't thought to be broken, although it was badly bruised - hopefully it won't keep him out of action for long.

Thanks once again to the parents for their great support (although I'm not sure if the clapping was for the rugby or just to keep the hands warm at times!), and to Mark M for his match reports from the games I wasn't reffing.