U14s take the honours as U17s fall at final hurdle

Westcliff RFC in Essex hosted the "Essex County Tournament" today with Hertfordshire providing three teams, as they did at Hitchin last year. But this was a much bigger affair with six teams competing in each age group.

In Pool B the U17s Hertfordshire Barbarians could not quite match the glories of last year when the "B" string famously defeated Oxfordshire, but they certainly ran Thames Valley county champions Buckinghamshire close, going down 10-5 to a try in the final seconds before giving Essex a scare or two in a 10-0 defeat.

The main county squad, on the other hand, took Pool A with some ease - though Yorkshire put up a huge battle before going down 7-0. Eastern Counties showed some real promise - but in the first ever competitive game could not hold the Herts girls who ran out 22-0 winners.

Meanwhile the U14s won their group by first beating a physically large Bucks U14 team 19-5 with tries from Courtney Arberry, Sam Voyce and Sydnie Grace, and Clare Shutler adding two Conversions. They then beat Eastern Counties (Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambs) 31-0 with Clare Shutler scoring three Tries and three Conversions, and other Tries from Megan Childs and Millie Porter.

With Essex U14 and U17 winning their groups it was going to be the local rivals against each other in both finals. But before that "Barbarians" played off against Eastern Counties - but after a break and their earlier heroics they were distinctly slow out of the starting stalls and 12-0 before the game was more than a few minutes old. A much better second half performance restricted the Easterns to only one more try, however.

So to the finals, and the U14s were on first. All previous U14 games between Herts and Essex have been extremely close and this was exactly the same. Essex scored an early Try, which they converted to go 7-0 up. Herts then scored Tries from Clare Shutler, which she converted, and Alice Nee to lead 12-7 at the break. In a very tense second half, Herts defence withstood the Essex onslaught and crucially Milly Porter just won a sprint to the Herts try line, following a perfectly judged Essex kick, to prevent the home side evening up the score.

So that was one-nil to Herts. Could the U17s complete the double?

At half time it looked certain that they would. They went into the break 5-0 up, and it could easily have been a much larger lead as Herts had dominated pretty much all phases of play. But a very different side seemed to start the second period which took place entirely within the Herts half. An Essex pack that had been going backwards suddenly seemed to win every scrum, whoever had the put in, and most of the lineouts too. The home side's confidence grew with every phase, and in the end a Herts defensive line that had stood definant and unbroken for two years finally broke. With the scores level the final play was a Herts lineout on their own 5m line - and it was in the end no surprise to see it stolen and an Essex forward crash over for winning score.

And so it was only the U14 Herts Captain Clare Shutler who could lift a Winners trophy for the county in the clubhouse afterwards. But however disappointing the outcome was for the U17s, they had still played well throughout most of the tournament until the final few minutes - and the Barbarians had again shown the incredible depth of talent in the county.