Sunday 25th January 2009 - Home against Haselmere RFC

Rain on Friday, dry Saturday and heavy rain during the night. No cancellation message from the club, the ground must be ok!.

On arriving there were large pools of water and puddles everywhere. The U14s have already cancelled, what a great ideal, to late for us as Haselmere were on their way.

Moving from the training pitch to pitch 1 and finally to pitch 2, there’s must be a dry spot, I think not!.

‘I called the cancellation number six times’ I heard someone say – don’t worry most of us had the same thoughts as well!. It was going to be another wet and cold day for both the Camberley and Haselmere players.

Haselmere turned out with about twenty players, considering the conditions (must have better drainage over there).

Richard had prompted the move to the best possible bit of playing area and marked out ready for the fixture with Haselmere. George was running about through all the deep puddles – “my feet are wet” he said – What a surprise!.

Richard, Adrian, John and Alan were at hand, with the Haselmere coaches kept the players moving during the training. This lead to games after the warm up and passing drills. It all came to an end a little earlier so the players could get off home to warm up. Was that George throwing himself across the floor – mud caked to his shirt and tracksuit trousers. He stood there frozen to the spot “I’m cold” he said. You must be walking home!. Gordon any ideas?.

Sunday 18th January 2009 - Away at Guildford RFC for a triangular with the hosts and Wimbledon RFC

Guildford’s pitches were certainly dry considering the rain over this weekend, but still a chill in the air. This was a triangular with Guildford RFC and Wimbledon RFC. It all got started once you had parked up and found the u10s pitch allocation – well that’s another story in itself – isn’t that right Adrian!.

A quick warm up session with matches between the clubs. Very good turnout overall with 29 players from Camberley. Well the catering did well out of us to, with a good vantage point from the clubhouse overlooking some of the pitches – shame that we were playing somewhere in the far distance.

Both our teams had a very successful day running over numerous tries against the teams they played. Myles S was certainly very pleased with his performance ‘I scored two tries’ he said – Well done to you and all the players.

Tim, Andy, Richard (He’s the one with his arm in a sling, maybe a little less waving at the ref today! ), Adrian, John and Alan, were all pleased with the players performances - keep up the good work – just like being back at school!

John - did someone mention haircut!. Anyway hope it didn’t take to long getting away from Guildford RFC!.

Training Wednesday 14th January 2009

Great to see an improvement in the weather, the ground had finally softened. Wednesday's training was on tonight. A good number turned out of 15 players. Richard, John and Adrian were there starting with a warm up, and leading onto passing and overlap drills.

Richard at the helm, the obligatory running to the tree for any misdemeanour or digression (not listening springs to mind!). ‘Run around the tree keeping it to your RIGHT’. Well that brought a few chuckles from the coaches as the players were in disarray. Again ‘around the rugby posts, keeping the rugby post to your RIGHT’. Must be the lemming effect. Sam was the only one to pass the test.

Well you may ask, Left, Right is there some confusion!. Well lets look back to Sunday, when at the start of training the players warmed up running zig-zags towards Tim, who was facing them. The command of ‘Right’ holding out his right arm and the players moved in that direction (in fact it was to their left), ‘Left’ holding out his left arm (in fact to the players right). I’m sure it will confuse the opposition at some point. Well we do have twenty weeks left to get it right!. Sorry for the pun.

Finishing off with a game, having an ideal number of players, each one getting involved, good work and positioning from Connor, Greg, Matt and Tim leading to tries by Sam, Myles, Charlie and James C. Both teams working hard. Jack nearly got through after a darting run when Daniel S put in a very good tackle, pushing Jack out into touch.
Good running with the ball from Jac, Freddie, Daniel C and William. Nearly time and Sam got hold of the ball, running zig zag along the left wing (or was it right!), they weren’t catching him today, followed closely by Miles waiting for the pass. Finally Sam was tackled and out of play. Game over. Well done. Was that Tristan still trying to get into the yellow tabard!.

Presentation to the Coaches

All the players have got together, cracked open their piggy banks and purchased a small libation for the coaches in gratitude for all their sterling efforts during the first half of this season.

After training this Sunday, the team captains, Fraser and Daniel S presented the coaches with a bottle of champagne each, followed by a chorus of ‘three cheers’ from all the players. Well done.

Tim wishes to pass on his thanks “On behalf of myself and the other coaches, thank you for the gift of champagne which was presented to us by the boys on Sunday. I can assure you that it was very gratefully received and helped to end the first half of the season on a suitable high. We look forward to the second half of the season and thank you in anticipation of your continued interest, hard work and support.”

Sunday 11th January 2009

We should have been away at Maidenhead to play against Maidenhead RFC and Windsor RFC, but they had cancelled due to the ground still been frozen and not suitable for contact rugby.

If the weather was ok then we would now train at home.

The weather has been extremely cold all week with sub zero temperatures during the nights. Saturday with a bit of snow and the ground still rock hard. Didn’t the Met Office said warmer weather arriving and 8 c max on Sunday.
Sunday morning arrives and it still looks very cold and white on the ground. Surprisingly it wasn’t so chilly when you went outside. Arriving at the club, a few squads had already cancelled their training, the Squirrels Kitchen looking extremely quite. Tim arrived hoping there would be reasonable numbers. We had the pick of the playing areas and duly set up on pitch 2 next to the clubhouse, well you can’t over do it at this time of year!. A good number turned out, 18 players. The kinders were out too, well done (or was it just a bit of madness)

Great to see Thomas back – he had a very warm vacation to OZ – playing cricket in the Sunshine. His mother Lisa confessed to even having a peak at the u10s blog whilst down under. Well that has to be furthest viewing so far. Well Thomas I can certainly see you enjoyed the run out today – maybe not!.
Sam certainly looked to be on another world today – maybe some more star jumps. Tristan’s sore throat came back this morning, must be it’s a Sunday thing!. The coaches of Tim. Alan and John warmed up the players leading onto some ball handling skills.

At one point Tim showed us all his nimble foot work and ended up doing a superb pirouette, landing on his xxx – back. Is the ground thawing out, you may ask!.
The sun was out and it was now a lovely winter’s morning.

Max had a good training session with some very good overlapping moves and the others were shown the way – well done

The training finished early and Tim warmed down the players, nearly time for the presentations.

Training Sunday 4th January 2009 - Home

A great start to the New Years training, 10am and the temperature was -4, another hard frost overnight. They must be calling the training off – most of the parents thought!. Oh no, ball handling skills today. Twenty players turned out, well done, all wrapped up and ready to blow away a few cobwebs, to much turkey and chocolate!. The ground was still white with frost when the warm up began. Tim, Adrian, John and Alan kept them moving throughout the training session. Some ‘star jumps’ were in order – did you enjoy that Sam?. They all did extremely well. Next Week is away and hopefully the ground will soften, ready for some competitive play.

Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year to you all.

We have a very busy schedule of rugby ahead in the second half of this season, with fixtures again Maidenhead, Windsor, Guildford, Wimbledon, Haselmere, Cobham, Old Ruts, Petersfield and Newbury. Leading onto the festivals later in the year.

To all the players in the U10s squad – enjoy and have a very good and successful time.