A thin line-up attended the 1st Ashby U10s Festival yesterday with only 8 of the squad able to make it on the day - Nico, Ryan, Archie, Woody, Connar, Arthur, Joe and Ethan. So no subs.

Since we only had one team we went into the A team competition against Ashby (runners up for county camps, Prima Cup finalists), Leicester Forest who'd dominated a number of competitions and a Melton team who're described by one Ashby coach as “really tough”.

Despite internal squabbles on the sidelines the lads played fairly well against Melton and the try we did concede was against the general run of play. Not the usual wobbly start! 4-1 win, get in.

The Forest game was as bruising an encounter as I've seen all year, if for no other reason than the ref having a different standard on what constituted a high tackle. After what seem an uncountable number of breaks for injuries (mostly neck) we finally limped into half time 3-1 down. A particular opposition player and marked himself out for baiting the guys so come half time they were resolved as a unit to shut him up...it also helped that Darren had a quiet word with the ref and straightened out the high tackles. The second half was brutal again but this time with the constant penalties against Forest give the momentum to us we dragged back the final score to a 4-3 win. Afterwards one wag was heard to remark "that shut him up!"

So that set up the last game against Ashby as the final. The lads put in a titanic performance in this game too and in spite of coming in at the half 2-0 down and being down to 7 men still managed to claw it back to 2-1 for the final whistle. We might even have snuck a draw...

Honestly, with the brutal games, no subs, concrete like pitches, scratch line-up and constant injuries to have done as well as they did yesterday was absolutely astounding. In the end Ashby had their full squad and plenty of fresh subs so we're certainly looking forward to seeing them again next season. Ashby were great hosts and it was a lovely little event limited only to the U10s.

Having calmed down a little now I feel certain that if we had taken 2 full teams we'd have cleaned up but I'm a little biased :-)

As always, so proud. Well done to all the lads and coaches, not just for Ashby, but for an outstanding year.

Edited: I pulled out my copy of Spilling for Begooners and corrected a few issues...