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King's St Alban's
6 October
Sports Roundup, Autumn Term: Week 5
U9 Rugby Festival at RGS The Grange
The U9 boys’ rugby team returned to RGS The Grange on Tuesday for their second rugby festival of this term. All of the boys took part in every match against teams from Bluecoat, Winterfold and RGS The Grange. After a convincing opening win against RGS, it was immediately evident that the boys have already made pleasing progress during their rugby training sessions over the past fortnight. The tries continued to come in the next match against Bluecoat, with some great scores from Henry, Ben and Alban. In the match against Winterfold, Pip, Jasper and Zach all demonstrated fantastic teamwork and determination in both defence and attack, helping to make it a very close contest. Mr Jenkinson and Mr Atkinson were both really impressed with all of the boys’ effort and progress, and are already looking forward to the next fixture.
U10A v King’s Hawford
The U10 A team were led by Ben J as captain this week, playing against a strong King’s Hawford side. This was a game of two halves: in the first half, the boys showed a great deal of good attacking rugby, with good runs and offloads across the board. However, in the second half, holes started to appear in our defence and the opposition team made the most of this. The boys continued to show excellent attacking rugby, but we missed too many tackles during the second half. There is nevertheless a lot to look forward to and a few things to work on going forward.
U10B v King’s Hawford
This was the second fixture of the season for the U10 boys, and we came up against our friends from Hawford. The game started off very well for the KSA boys, and we scored a number of quick tries through strong running from Brody S, Albert M-H and Freddy H. George C and Crispin N got fully stuck in and impressed with their tackling, showing brilliant technique and determination to take their opposition to ground! The tries didn’t stop here, and we continued to push on and impress in attack. Ché-David and Mark did well with the ball in hand, and showed good pace to go past the opposition and find a good time to pass the ball. The half-time whistle went and the boys looked thrilled with their performance and work-rate. The half-time talk outlined that they needed to be better at the breakdown and must ruck over the ball to keep possession. In the second half the boys did exactly what they set out to do: at every breakdown there was a KSA player rucking over to retain possession or attempt to counter-ruck. Harry B saw a lot of the ball and made good ground for his team. It was a great game of rugby, where we showed progression throughout.
U11A v King’s Hawford
The boys travelled to King’s Hawford for an eagerly-awaited match against our friends and rivals. Following joint training sessions and a combined and successful tournament at Millfield, it is fair to say both teams knew each other well and there were many comments such as, “Come on, you know what they’re going to do!”
The game started apace, with both sides giving everything in attack and defence. A wide and long pitch, coupled with the autumn sunshine, made it a battle of fitness as well as prowess and a challenge for the ageing referee! Hawford played with the slope in the first half and used this advantage well. Our defence held firm, but Hawford managed to keep the ball alive well and used the space cleverly. On a few occasions, we simply ran out of defenders and, as we neared half-time, the game seemed to be running away from us. A brief period of territory led to a well-worked try from captain Monty E, but a 5-1 half-time score looked ominous. As can happen with boys of this age, heads were down, fatigue was real and a blame culture was developing! The midpoint team-talk was about greater line speed, not missing one-on-one tackles, “making the ball do the work” and not losing the second half. The boys achieved all four of these points, and scored three further second-half tries, including a splendid solo effort from Joel B. The final score of 8-4 was a little disappointing, but the future certainly looks bright for King’s next year and the Modus Cup 2030!
U11B v King’s Hawford
All of the U11 boys took part in a friendly rugby match against King’s Hawford on Wednesday afternoon, which was a great opportunity for everyone to put into practice the rugby skills that they have been learning in Games lessons and after-school rugby club. The boys showed great effort and passion throughout the match, with some impressive tries from Josh and Aaron. Will, Harry and Jack tackled well in defence, and Arslan, Humphrey, George and Wilf all showed that they have made steady progress and ran well when they received the ball. It proved to be a very close match, which could have gone either way. After a tense finish, King’s Hawford ended up narrowly beating St Alban’s. All of the boys demonstrated great teamwork skills, which will help as we continue to develop our support and defensive skills and build towards our next match.
U8 Hockey v King’s Hawford
Well done to all the U8 girls who played against Hawford on Tuesday. One of their first of many fixtures through their school career. There were some goals from each team and it was clear all girls had improved from their previous hockey fixture. They did all enjoy the Maltesers at the end of the matches – well done all!
U9 Winterfold Hockey Festival
On Tuesday we took all our Yr4 girls to the U9 Hockey Festival at Winterfold. Combined our two teams played 7 games and we won 4, drew 2 and lost 1. The girls continue to make some pleasing progress with our hitting and passing skills getting stronger and our tackles being a little more tenacious. It is also great to see the determination of some players in front of goals, with the girls following their first shots and trying again when deflected. We do need to work on our spacing on the pitch and try to get the ball wide out of our defence.
Excellent afternoon of hockey, well done to all the girls!
U10 A Hockey v The Elms
Well done to the U10A hockey team who ended in a 1-1 draw against The Elms on Wednesday afternoon. It was great to use half pitches to enable the girls to wides out their play. Skye was excellent in position near the attacking D with Charlotte and Georgia bringing the ball up. The Elms scored an early goal and it looked like we were going to lose until a short corner was awarded 10 seconds before the end of the game. Zara came in to pass it and we managed to score from this making it a draw. The girls felt like it was a win – excellent! They all had a lovely afternoon all full of enthusiasm for hockey. Well done!
U10 B Hockey v The Elms
King’s St Alban’s started well, making some excellent tackles and looked the stronger team. Izzy and Ariya worked tirelessly in midfield but King’s St Alban’s struggled to position themselves close enough to the goal to create scoring opportunities. Rosie and Emily were reliable in defence and worked well together. Phoebe enjoyed the opportunity to play in goal and made a couple of excellent saves. Unfortunately, The Elms had one lucky break and managed to score shortly before half-time.
The girls started the second half with an extra burst of energy. They began to use the full width of the pitch and passed the ball with greater accuracy. Yifei put repeated pressure on The Elms defence with some superb dribbling. After a few close misses, she scored a well-deserved goal for King’s St Alban’s. Isy and Tilly worked hard in midfield and grew in confidence as the match progressed. All the girls had a lovely afternoon and they were pleased to come away with a 1-1 draw. The Elms chose Yifei as the Player of the Match this week. Well done, Yifei!
RGS U11 Hockey Tournament
On Wednesday we took 10 Year 6 girls to compete in the RGS Tournament. There were 2 groups of five so we had 4 games in our round. We started very strong against Winterfold with a lot of the play being in our attacking circle. We had a number of chances on goal and two were converted, one by Laura and the other by Lottie F. It was good to introduce some new players into the squad who came on and worked extremely hard. In our second game against The Downs the play went from end to end but unfortunately they scored in the last minute of the game. We struggled against Hereford who were strong and losing Ellie in defence to an injury did make a big difference. We went on to lose this game 3-0. In the last game we played Moorpark and the girls battled to the end and the game ended in a 0-0 draw. An excellent afternoon of hockey with Laura and Ellie defending their socks off and using the ‘see-saw’ tactics to keep them positionally sound. In attack a special mention has to go to Lottie F who tried hard to get the ball wide and made numerous runs up the wing of the pitch with the ball.
An excellent squad effort and some pleasing progress shown by all!
