U15's ‘A’ vs Northampton Saints

Wednesday evening saw the U15’s ‘A’ host Northampton Saints at Denton Road. Sunshine blessed us with a beautiful evening, but we knew we were in for a challenge against a strong Saints side and with us having some of our usual key players missing from our starting line-up. Regardless of these challenges the team including 3 debutants for the A’s (Harry, Ted & Jake), entered in to the game with Great Spirit.

Losing the toss to Saints who elected to bat, was already an omen of things to come, as we only had 10 players initially. Saints opening pair made the most of the resulting large gaps in the field and quickly accelerated to 60 without loss after 10 overs. Horton remained committed to the challenge with Freya eventually making a breakthrough in the 11th over with an LBW. Northampton Saints continued to accelerate to end their innings on 151 for 4 (with wickets from George, Ben P & Harvey). Special mention for his very confident fielding performance to Ted who had only stepped into the side a couple of hours earlier.

As team coach, I must take responsibility for changing our usual batting strategy in an attempt to remain in touch with the large target we were chasing. Therefore, I asked team to push for runs from the outset, which unfortunately was a strategy that did not work on this occasion. Wickets started to fall in the 2nd over and continued steadily throughout the brief innings. Freya & Miles briefly looked to have the seeds of a batting partnership with some well-crafted shots into the gaps in the field, before a mix up in the middle saw a runout to break the hopes of what might have been. A small wag in the tail saw our 2 youngest players Ted & Joey keep the game going for a final 4 overs before we finally succumb, ending up on 44 all out from 14 overs.

Thanks to all who played, it was great to play a game after missing 3 weeks.

We go into next week’s match with ON’s, looking to be back to full strength and we aim for a very different outcome…

Chris Meachem
U15 'A' Coach