Welcome to the Under 11s web page

U11s squad

A team update: Macclesfield v Rochdale

Macclesfield 45 – Rochdale 0

Macc Under 11’s arrived to play Rochdale on a crisp morning having played no rugby for 3 weeks. Pre-match training looked good with some excellent communication and handling. An interesting pre-match briefing by the neutral referee was probably more suited to first team fixtures left the lads confused but giggling a lot.

Ross McGlone was skipper for the day, winning the toss and electing to receive the kick off. Macc started well with some great handling from the whole team allowing James Oliver to score the first try of the day. The scrum was going well with the front row of Stanga, Walton & Wheelton winning lots of ball. Harry Harding started in the second row and pushed Rochdale everywhere !! The pack played very well winning lots of Ruck & Maul ball. Zak Bowden was playing one of the best games we have seen him play with a mixture of running and passing. The next try was created by a run by Zak he passed to Oscar who skipped past 3 defenders to score.

Try 3 was from a penalty won by Danny Briggs & Mathew Harrison’s tackling, the set move was called and Harry Harding crashed over from short range. The last try was scored by Harry Oliver, created by some excellent tackling by Ross McGlone and Charlie Toms forcing Rochdale to kick to Harry at full back who beat 5 defenders to score.

The team was changed round for the second period and this did not disrupt the game plan, Charlie Toms scored after spotting a small gap, Harry Oliver added 2 more tries, Zak scored a great solo try and the best try was saved to the end. Rochdale kicked long, 2 quick passes by Zak & Danny Briggs put Harry O into space, he beat several defenders to pass to Ross who had been following the play to sidestep the last man and score. All spectators and the referee where applauding the try and the fact that all 11 Macc players followed the ball carrier!

James Walton was player of the week.

B team update: Macclesfield v Widnes

Thomas Hurst was mascot for The Blues on Saturday, 18th February

So we travelled over to Widnes on a very sunny but cold Sunday morning and most of us even arrived on time to find a mud-bath of a pitch ready for action. Things looked ominous at first as the Widnes coach approached Tony to ask if he wanted to see the paperwork to show that their prop was really an under 10. He was a big lad indeed!

It took a while for Macclesfield to get used to the muddy conditions and within the first session they soon found themselves 4 tries down mainly because of some missed tackles and a failure to work together in the rucks and mauls. Widnes were getting a lot of good ball which was being moved quickly out to their wings so Macclesfield were playing constantly on the back foot.

Some wise words from the coaches during the break and things started to come together. Now we began to see some excellent tackling all over the park as well as some good driving forward but Macc just couldn’t keep the ball long enough to breach the Widnes try-line mainly because the defensive tackles were driving Macclesfield backwards and creating lots of handling errors.

The final session saw more of the same – some excellent play from Macclesfield but with little reward in the form of tries though we were held up on the Widnes line a number of times. The defensive effort was superb during the last 2 sessions with only 2 tries being conceded although Macclesfield were under pressure for the majority of that time. Everyone put in a shift and proved to the coaches that they can tackle with the best. Even their extra large prop felt the force of the Macclesfield defence, when he was tackled to the ground on numerous occasions and especially in the scrums where he was given a very tough time in the front row by Thomas who had him twisted double during the last few defensive scrums and for which he was appointed man of the match. Matt Harding would have been proud!

A fabulous effort again from Macclesfield against first team opponents. The team spirit is really noticeable in the team now.

Thomas Hurst was player of the week.

WELL DONE BOYS ON ANOTHER GREAT PERFORMANCE!