Chingford Festival

Following a gloriously sunny Saturday the Chingford festival looked to be perfect picnic opportunity but, as ever, the weather conspired against us and a monsoon ensued for most of the day.

It was another one of these complicated festivals, 10 points for a win, 5 for a draw, nothing for a loss and a point per try up to 5. When the organisers decide this do they ever stop to think about the poor match reporters they’ll cause large headaches trying to do the maths?

Brentwood’s first pool game, as ever on the furthest pitch from the club house, was against Romford and Gidea Park.

Brentwood U16s 5 Romford and Gidea Park U16s 0

Brentwood , having played American Football for most of the warm up, never really looked like getting anywhere near to their potential for the majority of the first half. There was the odd flash of potential here and there but nothing particularly to write home about and whilst Brentwood had most of the ball play was mainly in the middle of the park and Romford looked very comfortable in defence. With games only being 7 and a half minutes each way Brentwood really needed to up their game.

The second half was much the same as the first although Brentwood slowly started to show a little more promise. Eventually one attacking move flourished with some good hands amongst the backs putting Jonny in some space. Roland was on hand to support and from the resulting ruck Carl picked and smashed his way over the line. The conversion missed, 5-0 Brentwood. Unfortunately amongst this poor Roland had managed to relocate his nose half way across his face and that was to be the end of his day, talk about take one for the team!

Brentwood’s next opponents, as the thunder rumbled threateningly in the distance, were South Woodham Ferrers

Brentwood U16s 5 South Woodham Ferrers 0

This game started on a brighter note from a Brentwood point of view as Brentwood remained camped in the South Woodham 22 for a long period. The pressure finally paid off when a strong maul was formed and from quick ball the backs looped round, getting the ball as far as Sam Fry who was on hand to finish, which according to Steve’s stats makes him top try scorer for the season. The conversion missed, 5-0 Brentwood.

Following half time Brentwood continued to press and probably could have scored more points if it wasn’t for a combination of some decent last ditch defence and their own inability at times. On the plus side it wasn’t making it too difficult for me to work out how many points they were getting! Having had a try held up full time arrived and the torrential down pour that had been threatening did too, back to the handy marquee for cover!

Brentwood’s final pool game was against Westcombe Park, who, if I’m not mistaken, are the people behind Birth Certificates Please…

Brentwood U16s 5 Westcombe Park U16s 17

Alas, 3 years or so on, it appears the Westcombe lads have caught up with the “sheer physical mass” of the Brentwood boys as they comprehensively dismantled us. Admittedly Brentwood were dire, not even looking remotely alive and doing generally unheard of things like losing their own scrum. This of course put them under huge pressure and Westcombe were in no mood to be friendly, capitalising ruthlessly to go in for their first try of the game. The only consolation was the conversion missed, 5-0 Westcombe.

And then it got worse as shortly after the restart Brentwood chucked the ball away. It was hoofed on by Westcombe and the covering defence was outpaced, Westcombe collecting the ball to score the try. There wasn’t even the consolation of a missed conversion, 12-0 Westcombe and various expletives being banded around on the touchline…

Brentwood drew the second half but Westcombe still looked like the much superior team having scored yet another try straight after half time to make it 17-0 and given the time constraints basically game over. Brentwood did however manage to have the last words of sorts when Carl went over from short distance to at least get a score on the board. The conversion missed and at full time it was 17-5 to Westcombe.

This meant Brentwood progressed into the quarters as runners up in the group to face this season’s arch nemesis Woodford.

Brentwood U16s 0 Woodford U16s 10

For once, Brentwood actually started quite strongly with James going on a rampage up the wing and clearly rattling Woodford early on. In spite of this Brentwood just couldn’t capitalise on their early dominance and allowed Woodford to slowly work their way back into the game. A questionable penalty proved to be Brentwood’s undoing in end with Woodford opting to kick for the corner and then running straight through the ensuing lineout to score a try. The conversion missed and in a half where Brentwood were pretty dominant they turned round 5-0 down.

The second half saw Brentwood try hard but to no avail with Woodford quite apt at just grinding the time away. In trying to run everything knowing that time was sliding away from them Brentwood allowed the ball to go loose and conceded another try from the turn over which killed the game off leaving the full time score 10-0 Woodford.

Another season came to an end and whilst it’s been an up and down rollercoaster of frustration and elation it’s certainly never been dull!