What a fantastic performance by all Chobham teams at the Reeds Festival last Sunday. It was hard to believe this was only the second ‘full contact’ competitive fixture for most players such was the composure with the ball at the ‘breakdown’ (after being tackled) and the commitment to making the tackle. There are of course many areas we observed that we can work on in the development of our team play, however, as individuals many of the performances were outstanding.
We could name players from any of the teams however I was particularly impressed with the workload of Sam Clark and Max Orefice who worked together for the red team like a pair of hunting dogs in pulling down the opposition runners with big tackle after big tackle. Nothing got past these guys on Sunday and a great, fearless example for all players to watch.
Team highlights include a clean sweep of four wins for our mighty Orange team under Coach William Kanaan. Krishna really did have the biggest smile of the day! Due to absentees, the squad was down to only seven players and no substitutes, so all seven players played the full four matches against larger squads who had more rest and fresher players. At one point, Chobham were down to six players due to an injury but they battled on to win that game too.
Orange Team: Rhys Kanaan, Bruno Phelan, Jacob Griffin, Krishna Kler, Noah Jenkins, Raphael Shires, William Webb
The Yellow team finished close runners up in their group with a strong attacking performance to rival any other team at the entire Festival.The Red team lost only one game from five and have a record of 9 wins from 10 matches at this seasons Festivals to date.The Blue and Green teams were no less impressive and put in solid performances with plenty of good things to build on.
Additional photos of the festival can be found here: U9 Reeds Festival
Finally we would like to thank Jack Davies and his family for their contributions to Chobham over the past three years and wish them well in their new home in Cypress. They will always be part of the Chobham Family and Jack will always have a place on the team!
(M. Moreau, W. Kanaan)