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King's St Alban's
20 October
Sports Round Up Autumn Term Week 7
U11 IAPS Hockey Tournament
Last Friday, our Year Six girls travelled down to Clifton College in Bristol for the U11 IAPS Hockey Tournament. Although we made an early start, the girls were certainly full of beans and, after a very good journey down, we arrived in plenty of time for them to complete a thorough warm up. There were 19 teams, split into four groups and competing first in a round-robin tournament. We made a very strong start, beating Wycliffe: it was great to see the girls playing so confidently and scoring goals from just inside the circle. We then played Bristol Grammar and Cheltenham, both strong teams, and although the defence from Laura, Phoebe and Ellie was outstanding, we lost narrowly to both. Probably our biggest disappointment of the tournament was losing our final group game to The Elms, whom we had beaten the week before. It was one of those games where both teams had chances, but The Elms managed to maximise on one of theirs.
We went through to the Plate Competition and took on Hazelgrove in the first round. This match went from end to end and the girls from both teams were starting to tire by this stage in the day. The game was so tight that it went to a golden goal to decide the outcome; unfortunately, Hazelgrove scored first and sent us out of the competition.
The girls were a delight to be with throughout the day, both on and off the pitch, and should be very proud of their performance.
U10 Hockey tournament at RGS The Grange.
The girls had a wonderful afternoon of hockey over at the U10 RGS tournament. Here are some words from them:
“We were unbeaten all afternoon. Our defenders and goalie were brilliant and I enjoyed playing the games because everyone just got stuck in. It was lots of fun.”
“We played amazingly given the weather conditions. I think the left and right wings were brilliant. We played incredible matches: even when it was pouring down, we still played our very best. It was an fantastic team effort and we really enjoyed ourselves. Special mention should go to Maddie, our goalie, who didn’t let in a single goal all afternoon. Unfortunately, we didn’t progress through to the semi-finals, but we are very proud that we were unbeaten. Thank you to Mrs Clark and Miss Jordan for taking us.”
Report by U10 Hockey Team.
U9 Rugby Festival at Winterfold
The U9 boys travelled over to Winterfold to play in their last rugby festival before half term. To see the progress that the boys have made through this term has been simply brilliant. We played in four games against Blue Coat Birmingham, The Elms, Winterfold and RGS The Grange. The KSA attack all afternoon was impressive. Ben and Alban used their speed and agility to find gaps in the opposition defence to score a number of tries. Zack did very well, using his power and strength with the ball to break the defence. He also demonstrated a good rugby brain, working out when the correct time was to pass or just drive for the try line! Pip made the team good ground when he had the ball and topped this off with a wonderful try. Henry motivated the team well through the afternoon and his performances in all four matches impressed me. He showed great technique and determination to make tackle after tackle. During most team talks, Mr Atkinson and I wanted the teams defence to improve and for the boys to make more tackles. In the last game, we seemed to click and everyone pitched in to make try saving tackles and keep the opposition at bay.
It is amazing to come away from a festival and say that every boy within the team, contributed superbly and all scored at least one try!
U10 Rugby v Moor Park
Wednesday saw a close game for the U10s against Moor Park, with a final score of 5-5. The teams offload game was seen across the board, with Arlo and Uriah scoring some very good tries. It was a very competitive game with a lot of good moments. The other side had some strong players, so the boys used their speed and footwork to their advantage. Defensively we were still tackling too high and we will look at tackle height going forward. Harry D impressed with his rucking work and speed to every break down.
U11 Rugby v Moor Park
Nine boys from Year 6 managed to dodge the rain when they travelled to Overton in Shropshire on Wednesday the 18th of October to play a team from Moor Park Preparatory School. The aim of the match was to provide some of the boys who have shown particularly good effort, progress and teamwork in recent matches and training sessions with some extra, and invaluable, match time.
Any thoughts that the boys’ had that this was going to be an easy match were soon dispelled when Moor Park scored first with an early try. We were quick to reply with a try of our own though, before Moor Park scored again to retake the lead. The team had already missed quite a few tackles by trying to tackle too high, and not low enough. So, after being reminded about this by their coach, TJ led by example and put in an outstanding last ditch tackle down the sideline to prevent what looked like a certain try for Moor Park, which helped boost the boys’ confidence to tackle lower. Some quick passes and a strong run from Aaron led to him scoring an important try, just before the interval.
With the score level at half time, and realising that they were playing in a tough match against a good team, the boys put several phases of rugby together to score a few more tries in the second half, courtesy of TJ, Harry and Joel, to regain the lead. George showed great pace with the ball in hand once again, and was unlucky not to score after a winding run ended in him being tackled just short of the try line. Joel, Arslan, Joshua, Harry, Aaron, TJ were all solid in defence, whilst Jacob and George demonstrated good handling skills with the ball, as well as an improved confidence when playing. A special mention must go to Jonas, who seemed to be everywhere on the field at the right times and also played really well throughout the match, in both attack and defence! Moor Park showed great resilience to finish the match with a strong try of their own in the last play of the game, which meant the score finished 6-5 to King’s St. Alban’s. All of the boys played well together and after initially thinking that they’d drawn the match, were delighted when they realised they had actually won it! After a quick reflection as a team, the boys recognised that there is still some work on improving their tackle technique, which is one of the aspects that we will continue to focus on in training, after half term. As intended, the match proved to be a valuable experience for all of the boys who took part in it, as well as being a great opportunity for them to further develop their rugby prowess, whilst also improving their teamwork and leadership skills.