We, Oulton Under 8's have had 4 games since the last update - against a very good East Leeds side for the 2nd time in 3 games when we played probably the best half of rugby we have ever played only for the wheels to fall off in the second half and the lads to completely fall apart - strange how it changed so quickly in the space of a game.

Since then we have played a really young Heworth side who were just starting out, and both Hunslet Parkside and Dewsbury Celtic with a couple of decent players in each side but still not enough to really trouble our boys.

Apparently the league split the teams into divisions over Easter so after the break we should be playing more evenly matched sides, although hopefully we will be playing against sides that let us develop more rather than get suckered into trying to compete in games - I know we shouldn't go down that route but we find it very, very hard not to play in a different manner when playing against the better teams in order to try and compete with them, whereas when we play against teams of lesser ability we try and develop things by letting the lads offload and/or pass a little, but as previous posters have said plenty of teams even at this early stage coach their lads simply to do whatever is needed to score tries and/or win a game.

For example, in a recent game we have seen coaches teaching their players to scoot on the last tackle - now our lads are coached properly not to move off their mark in defense until the ball is passed as is the rule, but obviously when the half back scoots the pass never comes so our lads just stood watching the half back - we conceded 6 tries last week and 4 of them from the half back scooting. A side was clearly coached just to score tries in this way, what benefit there is for that side doing this I do not know, maybe we should challenge them to play by the correct rules but it's probably not worth the hassle so we let them do it.

Good to see that Crigg U14's still managed a game today despite only having 13 available to take the field and a spirited performance to loose out by a couple of scores to Siddal, Also I was glad to have a chat with the 2 scouts from Cas & Hudds that were there and glad there is still some interest in the players despite of recent form.
Looks like next week will be another tough one as crigg have at least 2 of todays players away on holiday. Great to see the U8's taking to the field today and with the U11's and 16's having competitive teams the Junior set up at Crigg is definitely on the way up again.