Off the back of a win for the Old Brentwoods 1st IX in the Essex Counties 2 Shield final and a record loss for England at Twickenham, Epping Upper Clapton U11’s made the trip to Brentwood. Which way would this game go?

The opposition started well thanks in no small part to additional players from OBs including George, Eidonas, William, Ethan and John, admirably demonstrating the rugby values and willingly lending their efforts, and George a try, to the opposition’s cause. Epping Upper Clapton scored with accretive gains against a straight OBs defensive line. In some gloriously muddy conditions Old Brentwoods’ reliable running game struggled to kick start. But OB’s shook off the mud and their other strength came to play – resilience.

With one of their coaches running the Brentwood half marathon on the same day, this team were never going to give up due to lack of fitness. In the final section of the game OB’s wrestled back some control with game management and old fashioned graft. The swapping of players coincided with OBs showing an easy ability to interchange roles, with William stepping into scrum half several rucks to regain control of well presented balls and Dougie twice getting to the oppositions scrum half and disrupting the play, and then onto their first receiver.

Ronnie got up a head of steam a few times - one of which required a fine last ditch tackle from the opposing team to prevent a try. Louie had a fine run in the final quarter breaking through the Epping defensive line and requiring some scrambled defence to stop his twinkle toes. Rex and Matthew struck back with tries; Tommy, Jonty, Austin, Dougie and John maintained a solid defensive platform and Eidonas provided reassuring defensive cover.

This was a tale of four quarters rather than two halves which finished with a well earnt feeling of “restoration” and a fitting team photo under the newly refurbished Old Brentwoods’ memorial stand.