An excellent visit to Hackney on Sunday. It was great for the boys to get some good game time before the first of our league fixtures on 11 November.

It was an excellent performance by the Hampstead U12s. Despite winning comfortably, Hackney gave our kids a really tough match. They were big kids and took a lot of stopping. They also tackled well, so to score eight tries against them was impressive. Both teams played great flowing, attacking rugby making it a real pleasure for the spectators to watch, even after the rain arrived towards the end.

I know I say this every time but … what is most pleasing from the coaches’ points of view is to see the things we practice on Saturday mornings being put into action. We’ve been stressing to the boys this year the importance of keeping the ball when we take it into tackles. They were excellent at that yesterday – all of them turning in the tackle to place the ball, and then enough of our players holding Hackney up to prevent them rucking over the top. We lost very few rucks yesterday, which is a key foundation for scoring tries.

Two other things were notable. First, they really played as a team. Everyone contributed well, without the old ‘honeypot’ around the ball. That demonstrates confidence in each other, and a cohesiveness that is absolutely essential to doing well as a rugby team.

Second, they displayed a lot of rugby intelligence: working out in the heat of the match what to do, and how to do it. That was also really impressive, particularly because it’s something that’s almost impossible to coach. At this level, we’re so focused on trying to teach the basics – and all the complexity of rugby’s laws – that they need to bring their own thinking about options during the game. To see them do that so well yesterday was fantastic.

The skill levels were superb throughout the match. They ran, passed, tackled, offloaded, rucked and mauled excellently. It was the fluid quality of the rugby the boys played that made it such an enjoyable game to watch.

The match itself ebbed and flowed in the first half. We started very strongly, scoring two tries, before Hackney came back at us and levelled the score. The Hampstead boys then put their foot on the gas, and ran in three further tries before half time, to lead 5-2 at the break. In the second half we had a drive to the line excellently finished by Abel diving over, and yet more tries from Tana (route one, crashing through their players) and Jack (mesmerising the opposition with his footwork, leaving them flailing), with two tries from Hackney, to make the final score 8-4.

As ever … the match provided a good opportunity to spot things to work on, and a huge thanks to everyone who turned up. Particular thanks go to the three players who agreed to play for Hackney. I know they’d have much rather played with their own team. Their help not only gave us the opportunity to have a full, well-contested game, but also gave them the chance to play the full match and saved the coaches from having to make too many substitutions throughout the match. The kids all arrived full of beans yesterday and eager to play, so I hope they all felt they got enough game time.