A pleasant autumnal morning saw some astronomical rugby from all three sides? With Bromyard bringing 11 players we had our usual 3 sides, a Bromyard side and a Baa Baas side (not playing in usual black and white hoops but green and gold(no not aussies either))

Cheetahs
As the cheetahs started there warm up before the first game of the day, there was a sense of a space odyssey. All still starry eyed from the fresh conditions but with a buzz of adrenaline shooting around they walked onto the pitch as if gravity didn't exist. All 7 faced the Bromyard/Kidderminster mixed team and looked straight through them at the try line as if it was the dark side of the moon.
The whistle went and from out of nowhere the cheetahs sprang into action. With a great run into the action from Mac and an off load to Tom they were well on the way to the first try. Of course Bromyard came back at us like a rocket and quickly scored making it 1 all.

With Chris taking centre stage as scrum half and passed to Jake the game was back in full swing, the team pulled together like planets lining up (and a lot of shouting from me) Fin ended up by touching down in the corner.

All played really well and with the power of Luis, Mac, Chris and Tom joined with the speed of Josh, Fin and Jake they are starting to play as a team.

With the second game not going as well as the first they all put in a good tackle and with training next week I'm sure that we can pull it together.

Player of the week went George, who played his first Contact match of the season after taking a ‘Tag’ sabbatical

Tigers
Today we played Bromyard, they came with 11 players, we brought too many to count as we had as we ran out of fingers and thumbs. At one stage we had a huddle and the sheer number of players in a circle started to warp space time.

Today we practiced Tackling, then once we had done that we practiced tackling, after a quick drink it was back to more tackling! It was almost like we were stuck in a time loop.

So onto match one:

We started off against the Bromyard A team. This proved a tough challenge. Some of their passing was stratospheric, but with some galactic size hits we consistently tackled as well as we have all season. We saw several great tackles and at one stage we had a seven tackle turnover, this involved the whole team at one stage or another and was a real achievement as Bromyard also off loaded out of several tackles so it was probably 9-11 tackles altogether. Well done lads. It shows all the work with Ian paid off at the start.

Then out of the blue like a meteor came Will, taking the ball deep in his own half he shot off like a rocket. Searing through tackles and heading for a dead cert try, in the end it took 3 Bromyard players to bring him down. Unfortunately they all ended up on top of Will and he needed a quick drink to regain his form! In the meantime on came Salvador for a lovely run.

This match saw both Matty and George take turns at fly half. Great runs from both but in particular leading the way in defence. Work to do on passing and when to pass, and not closing down the space for our wingers. But plenty of positives again. As the season progresses more players will play this position against opposition a teams. But from what we have seen so far it is not an easy role at all. It needs mind control working at the speed of light and a willingness to pass when the time is right.

This match saw us score a couple of lovely tries. And although the A team from Bromyard out passed us we certainly tackled them to a standstill on several occasions. It also contained another Ethan Special; once again Bromyard seemed certain for a try before Ethan using his super strength held him back. And push back for a try saving tackle.

Match 2:

This saw the tigers take on the Brombarians (half Bromyard half barbarians, you get the idea!) the Kidderminster players were hitting their straps well on both sides! Salvador volunteered of the scrum half task and put in one lovely tackle.

Sometimes I forget we have only had Greg and Ethan with us a short while. You cannot now tell them apart from our players who have been with us a lot longer. Both were making great yards in attack and defence. Greg scoring a lovely try and Ethan making lots of hard yards through the middle, crashing off players and sending them into orbit.

This match saw some notable firsts. First tries in contact for Will, Nico and Jacob. Nico and Jacob were both showing massive Improvement this week. Also the first complete performance in attack and defence from the tigers all season.

It was really nice to see all the players taking their turn in attack. We will work more on this in training. If we can keep tackling like this and build our attacking play we will have got to our season end goals early. A bit like back to the future.

Player of the week: Will. For making great improvements in his attacking and defensive play. Will got himself stuck into defence throughout and scored a lovely try. Well done Will.

Lions
Splitting the squad to cater for the Brombarians side we were understrength from the off. Praying we did not have any injuries it was all systems go into our first game.

Match 1
With Bromyard opting to start, the Lions set up an orbiting defensive line, as soon as the whistle went it was a cry of ‘blast off’ instead of the usual ‘fire’. Unfortunately my memory of this game is somewhat clouded as it was an action packed and even game quite hard to referee (I had to actually run). Bob was having a space cadet game and got confused between football offside and rugby offside, she was bought back to earth by her team mates and began to knock Bromyard back. Rory took a knock but quickly recovered to bolster the defence, Dom and Callum put in their usual workman like shift in defence and attack with powerful runs forward, Tafty and JJ helped one of the Bromyard players with a particularly pesky wobbly tooth ( hope he got a decent amount of money for it). All in all I think Bromyard may have just nicked this one at the death, and to summarise it was probably the best game I have seen them play all season.

Match 2 musings come courtesy of Kev as I was refereeing
With about three minutes notice and due to the fantastic number of players that the Under 9’s area attracting (yours truly Kev) was put in charge of a game between the Lions and the aptly christened “Brombarians” and to give the game a truly international feel, Bromyard’s South African coach stepped up to referee.

Mighty Sam was nursing bad back as a result of a football party, (there’s a morale boys and girls) so Sabian stepped into the Lions to make up the numbers.

The Game got off at a serious pace with Harry Male, Tafty, Callum & Sabian putting in some great tackles to hold up the Brombarians, and then counter attack to score three tries in quick succession.

The lions had all been give clear instructions to make sure the newly christened Bob didn’t stray offside and it worked brilliantly and when Bob took off the tracksuit bottoms at half time to reveal the Bright pink socks she was easy to pick out.

In the second half the Brombarians began to get their teamwork together, like a true Ba Ba’s team and gave the lions a good run for their money, With Jake & Ethan putting in some great tackles, however Dom, JJ & Rory got stuck In for the lions during the second half to produce a really even game with some great passing as well as the real focus on tackling, showing that all of the recent training is [paying dividends.

Player of the week went to Jake, his continued improvement in all areas of his game and for joining the dark side of the Baa Baas for the morning. Good man!

Good day by all, massive thanks to the lads who joined the Brombarians side during the morning, a big ask but they continued in their usual KCRFC style of play.

Big thanks to the mums who helped out in the kitchen :)

Don’t forget to read the tour and xmas party email coming out this week.

Below are a couple of links to videos we will hopefully be showing the players (see Bob I didn’t say lads!!) on Sunday about tackling, have a quick shufty if you get chance.

Tom Wood tackling Dan Cole and Tom Youngs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXNmigDHVgk

Top 5 try saving tackles
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIwpRrFI0hc