Crawley shine in the gloom

Crawley U10's travelled to Uckfield in wet and windy conditions hoping to realise some of the potential they had shown all season but struggled to consistently produce. It was looking like an arduous task as the heavy rain had saturated Uckfields low lying pitch and Crawley only had seven players attend with Louis and Archie at scout camp (which must have been pretty awful!!.)
It was drilled into the Crawley team, aptly supported by 2 players borrowed from Uckfield that good tackling, short sharp passes and quick winning of rucks would be the order of the day. The weather is a great leveller and usually restricts the unexpected, however no-one expected what was to follow..!
As the first game started, Crawley led by Fraser and his handyman assistant Alex, pressurised Uckfield into mistakes allowing Jay and Ewan to use their strength in the contact area. Uckfield were caught napping at the first scrum as pressure from Jay forced the ball out of Uckfields control and Alex was able to pick up the loose ball and dodge the tackler to score. 0-1. It wasn't long before a turnover at a maul allowed Ewan to race clear and score. Half time followed shortly after and Uckfield had huffed and puffed but not been able to break Crawley's dogged defensive work.
The second half saw some great rugby as Crawley now had the confidence to make their passes with Alex and Meg giving room for Cameron and Ewan to make their runs through the Uckfield defence. After good play by Fraser, a quick pass from Connor allowed Ewan to score his second, 0-3. Meg produced her usual general like performance, dictating the Crawley positions and organising the tacklers to good effect. Not long after a dubious hand-off was missed by the referee and Ewan scored again as the full time whistle went, to make it 0-4.

The second match after some skills training started off much more evenly, Uckfield broke Crawley's defence on a couple of occasions but great cover tackling from Alex, Ewan and Connor kept the sheets clean! Jay was becoming a big influence with his solid driving through the Uckfield tackles and his offloads allowed Ewan to score twice in as many minutes to make it 0-2. Crawley nearly scored the best try seen by the following in a long time when strong running by Ewan the Fraser and good rucking from Jay allowed Alex and Meg to free Cameron and his pass to Connor had 'Speedy Gonzales' flying towards the corner but his foot was dragged into touch just as he touched down to score.
The second half was all about Crawley's tackling and strength in contact as first Fraser broke free to score after more good work from Jay and Alex's tackling holding the player up. It was then great recycling of the ball and passing from Alex and Meg (who ran twice, with the ball..!) that gave Connor the chance to finally score a deserved try. Alex had terrorised the Uckfield half backs all day and his pick up from a strong scrum and careful pass allowed the winger borrowed from Uckfield to score in the corner. Ewan produced one final burst to score his hat-trick and Crawley ran out winners 0-6 as the final whistle was blow.
It was a great day given the weather, Crawley finally learned that if you tackle properly, the other team will make mistakes and tries will come. It was good to see some better rucking and ball carrying in contact and driving the ball carrier forward. Some quicker passing may have allowed even more tries to be scored but given the conditions the performance was excellent. If this can be carried on to next week, Crawley stand a good chance of progressing from their group to the finals. There were 7 players of the match as shown below. The team merit award for Feb/march is still up for grabs with everyone still in the running...
Team; Fraser, Jay, Alex, Meg, Ewan, Cameron, Connor