Malvern RFC

This weekend Spring Lane hosted training rather than any matches with five away fixtures at either Five Ways Old Edwardians or Droitwich.

U7
Excellent training session in the sun this week. The team’s confidence and abilities are improving week on week. There are always plenty of smiles and laughter and we are enjoying learning as we go.
Lisa Hopkins

U8
A lovely little fixture for the U8s this morning away at Five Ways Old Eds.
Numbers a little lower due to half term but this enabled more game time and the players worked hard in sunny but wet conditions.
Rob Cook

U9
The under 9s visited Five Ways Old Edwardians today with a depleted team due to holidays and birthday parties.
The team performed magnificently in a game that was at times scrappy and not without incident as players find their way in this first season of contact.
The Malvern players were absolutely brilliant and represented the club so well.
The team played some great running rugby and were organised in defence with comments from Five Ways on how well “drilled” the team are - we’ll take that!
We will continue to focus on decision making in attack and defending as a unit.
Luke Simons

U10
Under 10s away at Droitwich.
Droitwich had numbers so we ended up playing two matches which gave all our players plenty of game time. Droitwich coach Phil refereed both matches and was very consistent pointing out where all players were falling foul of the new laws.
Droitwich as always were very strong but to our credit we played some of our best rugby to date keeping both games very competitive.
Big shout out to Harry who put a shift in on and off the field encouraging our new players from the sideline when not bossing the game on the pitch.
Great rucking from the boys and glimpses of counter-rucking which we will build on ready for Upton next Sunday.
Ant Bookham

U15
The U15s travelled to Droitwich where they came up against a strong, well-drilled squad. Malvern’s forwards dominated in the scrum and held their own at most breakdowns allowing the backs to run which resulted in a couple of great tries from Damien. The second half saw Droitwich start strongly putting Malvern under pressure testing their defence to the full. Although going behind, Malvern regrouped, showed some incredible restraint and discipline running in a further two late tries which gave them the win. A truly outstanding team performance with the Man of the Match Jackson running in three tries.
Dave Blinston

U16
Away at Droitwich at October’s end, with a buoyant bunch of Bokke parents.
Question: how is it there are so many people with South African connections at MRFC? Corollary: same reason as there are so many people with South African connections at any other rugby club anywhere in the world.
Communication on the field for the U16 group has been one of the key learning challenges over the past couple of years, one in which clear progress is certainly being made. Last Wednesday night’s three touch rugby sessions, for example, were positively noisy affairs - plenty of mutual awareness-raising encouragement, for the most part.
But did this transfer onto the paddock on Sunday?
Losing an opposed training game to a Droitwich side is no big disaster. No big disaster, even when seven tries are conceded versus two scored. This time last year the same Droitwich side ruthlessly used their finest five-rugby-sessions-a-week development-pathway players to take the score way beyond the 50, seemingly without too much sweat and toil. There wasn’t much empathy. This year, a more mature Malvern, a less over-selected opponent, and a more balanced game. A training game. An opposed training game.
Most people got the memo - one key person may not have - and there were several very reassuringly reassuring moments - not least in the third quarter, when Malvern achieved a flow and a pace that was pleasing on the eye and produced their two tries. And not just any old tries. These were through-numerous-pairs-of-hands tries. Several-phase tries. Forwards and backs working in unison tries. Creating an overlap tries. Individuals making quick and astute decisions tries. The sort of tries of which the ABs only scored one last night. The Boks didn’t score any. Team tries rounded off by sharp thinking from Max and Louis McN, with Evan having for one of these made a key decision in his own 22, then involving himself twice in the move that produced the score. These were definite high points.
One thing to work on from this outing would be tackling. But is tackling the problem? Beyond safe and good technique, effective tackling in rugby is largely dependent on defensive organisation: being in the right place to execute the tackle. And defensive organisation is reliant hugely on communication.
There is a significant variability in rugby knowledge and experience right across this enthusiastic U16 group, and this means the lingua franca may not be a lingua as franca as everyone thinks. This makes effective communication in the moment difficult. The lesser-experienced players with the humility to ask the questions - what does that mean, what should I do in this situation, what happens in this scenario, where should I be positioned, how do I do this - those developing players are gold dust. Joe M and Alfie T* are two that stand out in this respect.
Today’s then was a learning and identifying match. Learning how much progress has been made. Identifying future training interventions in pursuit of improvement. That was the desired outcome of this fixture. That was the outcome achieved.
Oh, that, and two more sparkling tries than it takes to win a Rugby World Cup Final - no matter who’s refereeing.
Dai Morris

The men’s 1st team is back in action at Spring Lane on Saturday 4th November so head on down to support them. Sunday 5th November is going to be a busy one at the club. Please take care whilst parking!

#OneVern