Ashley Blue 2

Well Saturday took us back to the mighty Loburn domain for club day. We had practised during the week at getting the ball through the backs with Callum looping around to take the last pass. How happy were the coaches when the first try went like this; Jiggy hooks the ball, Blake controls it at the back of the scrum for Ben to get a great pass to Callum. Callum passes to James who straightens the back-line and passes to John-Luke who runs into space only to give the final pass to Callum who scores in the corner. It would make even Graham Henry smile.
Jayden had his best game of the season running in the open linking his passes with other team mates.

Our goal was to drive past the ball on the ground and we managed to do this for most of the game. Our control around the tackle area is starting to get better and if we continue to seal the ball off it gives us more time to set up our runners in the back-line. Bailey was picked as player of the day by James Lowe who is hooker for the North Canterbury team. His discipline continues to improve every game.

John Luke Tackled well and was great at cleaning out rucks. his running is getting better every game.
Callum has really improved his tackling and is growing in confidence in this area. His elusive running and speed is amazing. He has added so much to our team with his pace and skill this year.
Jiggy was more aggressive in all his game this week. His tackling and running all had purpose.

Travis ran aggressively and his work around the field tackling and wrestling the ball back is often missed. In the weekend three times his strength turned the ball over for us and we scored tries. he did all the hard work and someone else finished it off. It is why its a team game.9 players doing the work for the 10th player to score.
Logan worked well in the lose and in the open. He is running straighter and really enjoying the contact.
Blake broke the drought,scored a great try, and played his best game of the season. His work at halfback late in the second half was impressive.

Ben controlled the direction of play from thr base of the scrum and lineout well this week. His confidence in the tackle continues to grow and we have photographic proof.

James ran well and he tackles well most weeks.His work over the tackled ball is a strength in his game.
Well done guys and you deserved your 65 to 5 win.

Friday Night Football.

It was great to be back under lights at the Loburn domain. I had recovered enough from last years mental scarring that I could ref and thoroughly enjoyed the blow out and a few quiet drinks afterwards and the fish and chips!(Thanks to Peta and everyone who helped feed the mob on Friday)
We played a great team game and the passing and support play was very good. All players were involved and thanks to Jayden, Callum and James who played for the opposition without any,(well maybe a little) protesting.

Tries came thick and fast and to the best of our knowledge these were the try scorers,
Callum - 5
James - 5
John-Luke - 1
Bailey - 1
Jigs - 1
Ben - 2
Please if this information is not accurate and you are desperate to get it updated let me know please.

It must be emphasised though that to score the tries there have to be players doing the hard work to get the ball for us. Many tries were score after someone else had work us into a position to score or turned the ball over or fought hard to get it off an opposition player. Don't forget that this is a team game and we need each other.

I though our second phase stuff was good, with players cleaning out rucks and mauls very well. We protected the ball on the ground and we will have to continue to to improve in this area. If we do this part well it gives our speedsters more room to move.

One area we will be working on this Thursday is running straight as we still want to run sideways to go forward. It makes no sense when writing and reading this so why do we do it on the field.
We play the Ashley Blue side again this weekend. The worst thing we could do is relax because of the Friday night result.We need to build on the stuff we have learned this season with only two games, and the Amberley game left to go.

Please show up to training ready to go. This is not job for parents but up to you the players to organise. Mouthguard ,boots etc are required for practice, so players get it sorted!!

Glenmark Cheviot

Well on the latest adventure we travelled 100kms to the friendly village of Cheviot.
This was a big game for the boys as we had received a thorough pants down in the first meeting.
It was a fine day and the ground conditions were pretty good. Only thing to moan about was the length of grass but it aint Murrayfield.
Glenmark-Cheviot got off to an easy start as we chose not to commit to first up tackles. As soon as we learn to use our shoulders in tackles and not our fingers things will get a lot better and we wont have to try to win games from being down by 4 soft tries.
James and Travis played rugged games and were very physical in their approach to the opposition. These boys top the tackle count most weekends and can be counted on to run hard and straight.Passing was also a something these lads did to get our other players into space.
Congratulations to Callum who has now score a total of 42 tries for the season. That takes hime to 210 points plus GST and we still have a few games to go. His speed and elusive running is vital to our team. We did notice a few times on Saturday he was tackled and had no support. Come on the rest of us, get up there and help.

Jiggy is enjoys his new found role as hooker. He is keen and willing in exchanges and showed on Saturday he doesn't mind the physical contest. It took a we while for John-Luke to get into Saturdays game. He plays well and once he had switched on ran and passed well. Logan had a few opportunities to run but every week he adds another few tackles to his weekly count.
Ben ran well, when running straight, and distributed wonderfully from the base of the scrum. His tackling gets better every game as his confidence grows. Jack drove very well on Saturday he made sure that he hung on to the ball in contact and when given a chance stretched his legs to remind us why they call him Forrest!!

Blake had limited opportunities but is also increasing his tackle count throughout the game. When he runs straight he has the speed and the footwork to stretch any defence. When he arrived Sam used his size and strength to make an impact on the game. He ran hard and straight and worked well off the ball.

Bailey is fast, there is no denying that! We just need to get him into positions where he can stretch his legs and run around the opposition defensive screens. Bailey has improved in his discipline this year and is maturing into a very skilled rugby player. Jayden continues to improve with each game. Focussing on developing his skills is the target for the rest of the year as the season starts to wind down.
Thanks to all the parents and supporters who made the journey north last Saturday the boys really appreciate it. A Friday night game this week!!We need to up our skill level again and remember to drive past the ball on the ground and not attempt to pick it up if we are in a bad position. See you all Friday night.

The score was 45 to 20 with Callum scoring 3 tries and Ben 1.
Player of the Day Bailey
Most Improved Jayden
Tackler Logan

Amberley 27 June.

Well after a game where we couldn't do a lot right we played a game where everything we touched turned to gold. Our tackling still wasn't great apart from Travis. The big plus from this game was the fact we had players organising. The talk off the ball was positive and we controlled the ball when we took it into contact. It was a great game and by half time we had already scored 13 tries. the Amberley defence improved in the second half and our scoring rate slowed a bit. Or was it the fact we had to run up hill, anyway we focussed more on passing the ball and this lead to one of out best tries of the season. John-Luke talked well and help organise us.

Ben showed us again he is really working hard on his rugby delivering the ball well from the base of the scrum and running well. Travis is becoming a real work horse, a bit of a Brad Thorn. Jacks's tackling is better every game and his work in rucks and mauls takes a step forward every week.

Jig's attacked the ball on the ground a great deal more than last week and when given a chance he showed us how well he can run.
Between them James and Callum had a bit of a try-fest with Callum getting 8 and James 5. Both boys are running well. We will be working on getting the pass and giving the pass to players in space this week cos when we do we can use our speed out wide.

Blake came close with some great support running and continues to show us his skills as he gets more involved.
We ripped the ball well and Sam showed his strength in this area. Some technical issues in the tackle for him have caused a wee bit of a concern but we will work on this area.

Bailey's speed hasn't been utilised this season just yet. He is at his best when he is running as a support player to the other team members as his pace is fantastic. Check out the photo above!!
Jayden has been thrown in the deep end by coming into the team halfway through the season but he is picking up the game one skill at a time.
Logan is working back to the form he showed in the Kaiapoi game when he tackled everything standing. His support play around the rucks and mauls is improving and when he runs he has a great turn of speed.

Lets hope we can maintain the momentum heading into the next game.
Thanks to Kathryn again for some great photos and Sue Kirwan, or someone Sue knows, who provided some footage as well.Thanks to all our supporters especially the ones who dont eat the special slice made for me!!!!!! Oh and Ned!!

Ohoka

The score board should have simply read Bugger!
We arrived at Mandeville but didn't come to play. It was not our best performance of the season and even though we tried really hard we just couldn't get a lot to work. The high light of the game would have to have been our last try.
Ben broke down the right hand touch line to pass back in field for John Luke to score. It was great to watch as it was a great example of what we can do when we support the ball carrier.
WE did learn today that if we don't make the first up tackles then we will struggle, especially against a side with pace.

Saracens Blue. 11/6/11

Today i reckon, we score our best team try of the season. It was in the second half and the ball went from Ben to John- Luke to Baily to Callum who scored!( or something like that)
It really makes you smile when this comes together.

Anyway, Sam had a great game and I hope this is just the start as he started to use his size and speed to do some damage. Check out the photo!!!

I was impressed with the driving of Travis and Logan. These boys bound and drove a number of times and it looked great. Travis continues to be one of the best tacklers in our side and his commitment is great!

Bailey showed his pace this week and his backing up was excellent. Ben scored a good supporting try and is working hard on his defence.

Our Player of the Day was Sam and most improved was Travis. Jiggy tackled and ran well and earned the best tackler award.
Tries to Callum 3
Sam 1
Ben 1
James 1

The story continues.....

Okay so this is a bit out of sync but who cares. We have a list below of the games and the tries and we hope, well we are pretty sure we have got it pretty much right.

We have added a tackling prize to encourage the team to get stuck in as we all seem to love running with the ball but we are a bit gun shy in contact.THanks to Warwick and Sue Kirwan who have organised this prize.

I have added so great photos from Kathryn who is becoming a bit of a legend with the Box Brownie.

May 14th Glenmark/Cheviot HOME
Ashley 15 Glen/Chev 65
tries
Jack
Logan
Callum
Most Improved Logan
Player Of the Day Travis
Tackler Jack

May 21st Oxford Black Home
Ashley 20 Oxford 45
Tries
Baily 1
Cullum 3

Most Improved Sam
POD James
Tackler Blake

28th May Oxford Red at Oxford
Ashley 20 Ox red 30
Tries
Cullum 2
James 2

Welcome to 2011

With the Ashley Website starting I thought this wouldn't be needed in 2011, I was wrong. I may try to link it with the Ashley Website but I reckon we will just stay here.
The season got off to a great start with the squad pretty much the same as last year, Callum coming in for Luke Gill.
Callum has added a great deal to the team with a good knowledge of the game, great elusive skills and speed!!!!!
All the boys have grown a great deal from last year with a greater level of running and definitely tackling. We saw the running ability when they blew Saracens Red of the park by 80 points. We area a team of runners but we still need to work on our contact areas.

Game 1 Hawarden United away game
Ashley 60 United 35
Baily 2
Callum 8
Logan 1
Jayden 1

Game 2 Kaiapoi away game
Ashley 25 Kaiapoi 25
Callum 4
James1

Game 3 Oxford red Home game
Ashley 25 Oxford 30
Callum 4
Ben 1

Game 4 Saracens Red
Ashley 80 Saracens 0
Baily 2
Callum 5
Travis 1
John Luke 1
Jayden 1
James 3
Sam 3

We have since played Glenmark-Cheviot, Oxford Black and Oxford Red(ish) again.
The last Game against Oxford Red(ish) was a loss but what a turn around for the boys in the tackle area. We counter rucked our butts off and produced one of our finer efforts. I believe we can only go forward from here.

Both these photos show how we attacked the ruck ball. With the Oxford player on our side of the ruck after Callum and then James has tackled them and got to their feet to drive over the ball. Great listening guys!!!!

All our team are starting to run straighter lines with the ball, all we got to do now is look to off load the ball to a player in space, before we get tackled.

Ohoka

Yesterday we played an extremely physical game at Mandeville.
It was actually a great chance to reflect on a season where all the players have made great strides forward. Logan and Travis picked up our team awards but they could have gone to any number of players on the field. There are times I think some of us forget that these boys are just 7 and 8 years of age. We watch the big boys on TV and start to compare. I doubt some of the current All Blacks showed as much potential at the same age.
In fact some never played rugby!
Well I am happy to say all the boys have improved over this year. Maybe they have not made the advancements we experts from the couch think they should have but all have learned a lot more about the game of rugby.
Bailey, Ben and Blake continue to show us how fast they are in the open. These boys have the ability to finish off movements once we start to pass the ball into the space a bit better. Logan and Jayden are developing their all round game. In the past few weeks they have both increased their tackle count and both are getting their hands on the ball more. Jayden's near miss yesterday showed us again the pace he possesses.
James and Sam ran strongly and tackled well. They have a developed a good partnership this year and work well as a unit. Both boys have the ability to bust tackles. John Luke again tackled and ran strongly he is another player who has enjoyed the shift to contact and he is always willing to put his body on the line to make the opposition stop him as he goes forward on attack and defence.
With only one game to go it is a bit of a shame as the boys are just starting to hit their straps.
Oh well we will look forward to the Amberley games next week.

Ashley Blue

With another a game out of the way and the result being a fantastic effort from both teams it was really tough to write this. It seemed right from the start the tension in the air was coming from the sideline. Why is it that?
Why is it that no matter how hard the children try there are people who want to make it ugly for everyone concerned. Well anyway amongst the tension there was rugby played and Jayden had his best game of the season. He tackled and ran harder than ever before and deserved our player of the Day award! John Luke tackled and made sure that people knew he was on the field every time he ran. Sam and James were carrying the ball well and Luke and Logan worked well to get the ball up off the deck. Blake's speed and his eye for a gap gets better every game and Jack increased his number of tackles again this game. Ben,Travis, Bailey all ran with pace and were great at supporting the ball carrier throughout the game.
I would like to thank all our supporters who kept their cool, unlike the ref, who, if wearing rubber gloves, may have shoved the whistle somewhere dark!
Pete , you were awesome having to put up with a Saracens style approach wish I was as cool as you.
Thanks Peta and Alicia for the chips they were awesome, especially the extra packet we found after every kid had left the table.
Ohoka this weekend up there. Lets have a smashfest with our running and our tackling.
Bring it on.

Sorry to all you avid followers out there, all 3 of you, about the lateness of this match report. Too many late nights with Alberto and Andy.
OMG that sounds incredibly dodgy. I have been watching the Tour de France!!!!

Well what a wet and greasy old day it was on Saturday.
We came up against a really big side in United with our guys struggling again with the first up tackles.
United had two players who ran straight and hard and we struggled to put them on the deck time and time again.
Straight running is key on days like this! Travis showed how important it is when he drove up the middle of the field and set James up for his first of two tries.
Running sideways in wet conditions just makes you an easier target, as the wet ground slows everyone down.
great to see Jack getting stuck in and making some telling tackles. Luke has lifted his game again and Logan put his body on the line time and time again.
We will learn eventually that the ball when passed moves faster than the man and hopefully we will make those passes to put players outside us into space. Learning to set up tries is tough because all we want to do is run with the ball!
Blake continues to distribute the ball in tackles and Jiggs would have scored if not for Dad's honesty!!( No, well done Simon, appreciated your input)
Sam ran well again and John Luke was at his devastating best in the tackle and on the run. Ben,once again, covered a lot of ground running with the ball. Bailey continues to show his pace in bursts and when he focusses on his rugby he is a real match winner.

Final score United 30-us 20
Tries to James (2), John Luke, and Sam.

We have 3 games left in the regular season, that means at least 3 practices. Let's see if we can work on our passing and our first up tackling right up to the end of the season.

What a high scoring Match it was on Saturday. In fact everything was moving so quickly that I have only just settled down to write something at my computer. Some 3 days later!!
With the Ashley Team scoring 17 tries and the opposition scoring 14 attack and not defence was the name of the game. First up tackles were often missed and this contributed to a high scoring game. Jack scored a great try after a turn over from our team and I lost count how many Sam got! Jayden also got a good try using his speed to race to the corner and score.
Travis showed the level pf commitment we need by attempting to smash anything that had the ball and in some cases anything that didn't. Travis earned the Man of the match award. Blake's play making earned him the MVP award with his off loading skills coming to the fore. Luke ran well a with the ball in had and John- Luke was at his aggressive best in attack and defence. Ben and Bailey ran well again and showed plenty of pace. James showed that he is developing an all round game in attack and defence.
With the middle week of the school holidays off we will look to train again on the 15th before we play United.

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.