Sunday 30th September 2007 Beccehamians at Kent 11s Festival Beccs U14s first foray into 11-a-side rugby ended in disapointment, losing 24-12 to a strong Sevenoaks side in the cup 1/4 final. Drawn in a strong group with Cranbrook, the 2006 Kent cup winners and Dartfordians, the 2007 runners up, Beccs started slowly against Cranbrook. Trying to play the 15 a side game is not a good idea against a well drilled side like Cranbrook and we soon found ourselves 7-0 down. Concerted effort finally paid off and Jack Robertson scored a good try but could not convert to leave us losers by 7-5. The next game saw us up against Medway and a change of style. Waking up after such an early start, the pack began to win quick ball from ruck and maul. This gave a fast back line the opportunity to run in six tries with Angus Peters and Liam Melville adding pace to that already supplied by Jack Robertson and Harry Trype. Once again Joseph Patterson covered every blade of grass on the pitch and with subs rolling on and off everyone contributed to the 36-0 win. The final pool game saw us take on Dartfordians, a side who soundly beat us last season. This time they were no match for our pace with the forwards again playing a fast, dynamic game with particularly strong performances from Sam Jeral and ferocious tackling from Jack Murtagh. Strong scrum half performances all day from Paul Broadhurst and George Scott ensured good connectivity between forwards and backs and Darts were seen off 21-5. The slow start against Cranbrook probably cost us a place in the final as we then came across Sevenoaks, fielding four or five of their Kent players. Having scored over 100 points in their pool with none against, they were rightly confident. Beccs set about bursting that bubble and came at them hard and fast scoring a great try from Jack Robertson after some good support play. Sevenoaks worked their way back into the game scoring a good try before getting the luck of the bounce in a foot chase to lead 14-7 at the break. Shortly after half time some poor defending by Beccs, the only real low point of the day, gave them a soft try that was followed by one that should have been disallowed to leave us 28-7 down. Beccs continued to play fast rugby and pulled a try back to finish the game losers by 28-14. It says a lot for this squad that they now come away disappointed from festivals if they haven't won a trophy but today they can hold their heads up having played some fantastic rugby. Strong performances from all our established players were matched by some accomplished work by newcomers Angus Peters, Liam Melville, James Chatten, Rob Neave and George Scott. Bring on Cranbrook next week!! Robbie Broadhurst