Skilful Streatham strike swiftly

The last game of the season, the last chance to impress, the last opportunity to lay down a marker on the league and what a marker it turned out to be. Boosted by the luxury of a full strength team and the prospect of securing 4th place in the league plus highest bonus points, the motivation was there to continue strong home form and put in a strong performance and this motivation carried the boys through their best performance of the season.

With a challenge set to the forwards of utilising their size and physicality to dominate the breakdown area and set a platform for the backs to play the game began. Straight from the off the forwards seemed keen to impress. strong ruck work from the flankers Kishan Anrude and Brayner Anrade allowed the final back row player Rimarni Richards to pick and go and cross the line under the posts allowing Conor Oresanya an easy conversion. 7-0

From the resulting restart Kubilay Sasmaz claimed under pressure to enable the ball to be worked to Jamal Ryan-Coker who sprinted over the line to extend the lead. Conor Oresanya with the extras 14-0

The third try came in similar fashion with the restart claimed, strong ruck work from the fowards and then an offload by Kamal Monfries to John Olloh who found space to sprint over from the halfway line. 21-0

Warlingham tried to exert pressure from the restart but forceful tackling from Brayner Anrade lead to them knocking on and a scrum being awarded to Streatham. From this scrum Rimarni Richards performed his trademark pickup and turn of pace to shrug off the attention of defenders and cross the line for the fourth try with the extras once more added by Conor Oresanya. 28-0
Having worked on the restart before the game the boys were comfortable defending a range of kicks and when Warlingham decide to kick long the boys adeptly turned it into an attacking opportunity, Ben Crewe finding space on the wing to run in a further score. The extras scored again 40-0

At 40-0 the game was over as a league fixture but Warlingham to their credit did not concede the game deciding to play on and they were duly rewarded when Streatham switched off to allow a player to round the team and score on the wing.
However, Streatham did not like having the margin narrowed and set about increasing the lead with Jamal Ryan- Coker running in to score from Brayner Anrade's steal at a ruck. 47-5

Soon there was another score with Nathan Addy-Walker setting up a maul from which the forwards worked the ball to John Olloh who sniped around the far fringes to score not needing to use the support of Romeo Brown. 54-5

The final try of the game was arguably one of the trys of the U13s season with a strong team effort in consecutive rucks leading to an opportunity for Jamal Ryan-Coker to run at the defence before offloading to Conor Oresanya, one of many options, who stepped into space to score. Unfortunately he was unable to add the extras but this score was the one that stopped the game 20 minutes short. With the Warlingham coaches feeling the game was to physical. despite the protestations of both ref, players and home coach.

Today's strong performance shows what an impact we've had on the league and also shows strong development through the team. My only wish is that we had the strength in numbers throughout the year as I'm in no doubt that a title charge would have been possible.