Boston's Under-13s 20
Lincoln Under-13s 50
By Russ Makinson
Photo Credit: Donna Arend/Andrea Carrington/Louise Budgen
After being let down by Peterborough late in the week, Lincoln's Under-13s played a hastily rearranged fixture away at Boston RFC.
Coach Russ was expecting a tough assignment, made even harder when, due to last-minute illnesses, we travelled with only 12 players. However, Boston were kind enough to make the numbers even.
A respectful minute's applause was held to remember Evesham RFC player Jack Jeffrey, who sadly lost his life whilst playing the game he loved last weekend.
Lincoln kicked off the first half, with the wind blowing diagonally behind them and immediately went on the attack, and stayed on the attack for pretty much the whole game!
On Tuesday last week, we held a day of training, and this really paid off with some fantastic play in the first half, where - well there's no other way of putting it - the lads blew Boston away.
Scrummaging was excellent, as was the rucking, and Lincoln were able to turn lots of possession into points with six first-half tries to 0. Full-back Morgan Jones scored the first try, which came from a scrum that the pack won against the head.
The second try came quickly after the restart - a great kick downfield by fly-half James Tomlinson was chased well by centre Tom Arend, who took the ball away from the Boston full-back and set up a ruck. Scrum-half Hugh Dixon picked up the ball and scampered blind to score.
Some excellent attacking rucking from both forwards and backs saw Morgan Jones in space for his second try, Lincoln's third. As Morgan's confidence grew, so Boston started to struggle with his powerful and direct running - his third try came from him fielding a Boston defensive kick in the midfield, running it straight back at them like a knife through butter.
His fourth came from him charging a Boston kick down, getting a good bounce and pick up to run in unopposed.
Lincoln were again on the scoresheet immediately, after the Boston winger mis-fielded the restart kick, and our winger Kieron Fields pounced on the ball and sprinted home.
A half-time chat from the coach kept the lads focused and we kept pressure on Boston right from the restart. The Boston kicker didn't realise how strong the wind was behind him, and the ball went dead in goal from the kick-off, leading to a scrum on halfway.
The forwards made a good metre or so and won the scrum to put the backs on the front foot. The ball went through hands to, you guessed it, Morgan Jones, who cut a beautiful line to run through for his fifth and Lincoln's seventh, try.
Credit to Boston, they never stopped trying right through the game, with their four tries coming from a brace by Sid Oversby and one each for Angus Martin and Henry Lawman.
Boston's persistence finally paid off for them when they got onto the scoresheet twice in quick succession. The first came from a couple of missed tackles in the midfield before the second saw some excellent attacking play, where Lincoln just ran out of defenders.
Lincoln's eighth try was a real team effort. A superb scrum from the forwards was won against the head, five metres from the Boston line. The ball was passed through the backs, with both James Tomlinson and centre Kyran Makinson putting in some solid forward surges.
A quickly recycled ball was passed from Hugh to Kieron Fields, who stepped his defender to complete his brace of tries.
Boston replied quickly for their third, and from that restart, second row Finley Scott caught the ball and surged upfield - to be fair, he's 6'2 already... even I wouldn't want to tackle him!
The ball was recycled quickly and prop Tom Fletcher picked it up from the ruck and crashed over for his first ever try, and Lincoln's ninth of the game.
Boston's persistence was rewarded with their fourth try, when a wayward kick was held up in the wind and caught by their captain, who ran it in.
Not wishing to finish on that, the Lincoln lads redoubled their efforts in the last few minutes, with powerful runs and excellent rucking from captain and Number Eight James Thomas, hooker James Ives, prop James Budgen and second row Jonah Richardson.
This led to the ball once again being spread wide to Morgan who waltzed in for his double hat-trick try. The final whistle went shortly afterwards to cap an excellent game.
