Old Coops U15 kicked off their season on Friday night under the floodlights at Romford & GP.
The much larger Romford pack started well and looked to impose their size, however two massive tackles in quick succession from number 8 Dan Moorey galvanised the rest of the Old Coops lads, who continually met fire with fire and drove Romford back time and again throughout the entire match. Romford opened the scoring, capitalising on an OC handling mistake, but then OCs stepped up a gear, distributing the ball excellently, creating space all over the park.

The inevitable opening OCs try came from a beautifully read interception from Liam Jary, who raced over from 30 yards out. The direct running from Romford's big lads was in stark contrast to the silky running and great offloads from the pacy OC side, and great tries were quickly scored out wide by George Walsh, after an intelligent quick tap and go from Reggie Marshall, and Lennie Hough. Romford were able to bring on some heavy firepower in their back row which eventually paid off. After some great defence on our own line, repelling wave after wave of powerful surges, the inevitable gaps appeared resulting in a couple of Romford tries to keep the scoreline close.

The boys didn't drop their heads though and quickly added to the try count through debutant Riley Russell, finishing off a fantastic backline surge, and then Liam Jary using his power to storm through 3 tacklers to dive over. The final 20 mins looked to be going Romfords way, with OCs finding it difficult to gain possession and the home team managing a few more tries through brute force. A great tap and go from Dan Taplin inside our 22 was quickly fed through hands to Jaden Singh-Bal who outpaced the Romford cover from 60 yards out to score a great try and then minutes later he went over again in similar fashion. Reggie Marshall converted 4 of the 7 tries, making the final score 34-43. Both teams were happy with the physicality shown and the game was played in great spirit.

Man of the match was Riley Russell, a tough decision to make as the entire OC team were superb.

#LasB#