CRUFC U16s 0 - 10 Bishops Stortford

The alternative title for this weekend should read:

Dutch U16s Hookers take a beating and Bishops get late relief

This weekend saw a double performance for some members of the Cambridge team when they played a friendly against a visiting Dutch team, the "Hookers of Holland" from Hoek, as a curtain raiser to the saturday national league match. The match had been organised at the last minute so congratulations to everyone who was scrambled to play. Rugby is not widely played in Holland and the tourists clearly enjoyed what was a very fun and friendly match, although Cambridge proved too strong for them.

So on to sunday, against one of the strongest teams in the region. Bishops Stortford are currently high in the Saracen's league, and gave our lads a beating two years ago in the U14s, so this meeting had been hotly anticipated. Cambridge started very powerfully with almost all the action in the Bishops Stortford half. An early maul collapsed across the line but the ball was held up for no score. A couple of fast counter attacks down the wing showed what Bishops Stortford are capable of, but were rapidly closed down by the Cambridge defense. Cambridge dominated lineouts and contested well in the scrums to finish at half-time with still no score to either team, 0 - 0.

As the second half started it became clear that the game was a match of two contrasting styles - Cambridge trying to maintain possession and concentrate more on the pack while Bishops Stortford keen to feed the ball out to the wing as fast as possible. A further period of balanced play still saw no score, until in the final 15 minutes Bishops Stortford finally found the overlap they had been looking for and scored two tries down the wing in quick succession. The final score was 0 - 10, not the result Cambridge were looking
for but still a major improvement on past performance.