It was a muddy cold old day up at Oxford on Saturday. It was obvious to many on the sideline that the boys were short of a training run or two. We seemed to not want to make those tackles and we really struggled to contain the speedy number 7 from Oxford.

One thing that went our way was our drive . It was pleasing to see on a number of occasions our awesome body positions as we drove back the Oxford players.

We do need to hold on to the ball in these situations and we often found turning it over lead to having no defensive line left to tackle.

John Luke slotted back into his old ways and tackled and ran his heart out scoring some good tries. His presence in the team has been missed over the last couple of weeks.

Sam's rich vein(not related to Craig's veins)of try scoring continues with 11 tries in the last three games. Four more this week. Travis continues to improve in every game he plays in. His running and tacklng has come a long way since the start of the season.

James also scored a hat trick of tries this week

We do need to improve our defence though. It seems without the constant contact at practices we forget how to get a shoulder on the opposition.

Thanks to Simon who took some great photos this week and to Michelle's dad who took some crackers last week.

I will try to use as many as I can.

Us 45 them 70.

Tries Sam 4
James 3
John Luke 2

vs Kaiapoi

Another tough game with both sides trading tries quite often. Impressing this week with a good dose of controlled aggression was Jayden Neilsen. Jayden ran and tackled with a great deal of passion. The great thing about this week was we were all involved, every playere tackled every player ran hard.

I noticed this week we are running in support of the ball carrier so much better. When Sam scored one of his many tries we had three players who ran with him just being available for the pass. Great work guys.

Another thing we are doing well is making the tackle and getting to our feet to play the ball it is great to see so many potential Ritchie McCaws out there.

Our Player of the day this week was Jayden with Travis Wiki showing an awesome tackling ability to earn the teams most valuable player.

Tries this week to;

Ben

Bailey (2)

James

Sam (4)

A win to Ashley 40 to 30.

Saracens Red

With the best view in the house from the Number 3 stand, I watched a vastly improved Ashley side.We are attacking the tackled ball area so much better now than we did earlier in the season. Vastly improved performances from Luke Gill, Blake Murch and Logan Jeffery, spread the work load around a great deal more. These three guys began to show a greater level of commitment to the tackle and this just helps the team to improve. James got the try scoring rolling with a well earned try. John-Luke was the next go in. Bailey was on the board next and he ended up scoring 3. Blake also scored in the first half. Sam woke up in the second half and crashed over for 3 awesome tries.

We are still struggling with first up tackles and really need to improve on our defence. With 8 games to go it will be one of the things we will work on. There are still a couple of us who could do a lot more through out the game each week.

Final Score Ashley 45- Them 40

Sam 3

Bailey 3

Blake

James

John Luke tries.

Thanks to Peta for organising a ref this week as our usual guy fakes his injury.

Thanks also to the Saracens coach who always makes these games entertaining.

Once again a big thank you to our supporters who are great to have on the sidelines each week.