Spring decides to avoid Wharfdale RFC this year….

With a pitch that more closely resembled a Flanders field and weather conditions bordering on Arctic the Ripon U9’s put in a gutsy team performance to register comprehensive wins over their spirited opposition.

The previous weeks intensive tackling practice at Mallory Park clearly paid off as Ripon’s defense was rarely breached with a notable period of play where our try line was successfully defended against numerous Wharfdale attacks.

Faced with some large ball carriers in the opposition we nonetheless saw some of the best low hard tackling of the season. Outstanding individual performances were too numerous to mention but it was very pleasing to see our usual line break tries being added to by a great increase in the number of offloads made out of the tackle and passing to players in space.

Several of our tries saw most of the team handling the ball with many players handling more than once in the same movement. All in all a character building morning that the players can be very proud of.

Dave Hendrie - U9's Coach