14 October 2021
On Saturday, the U8A team arrived at a foggy Manor Prep for their inaugural U8 rugby festival. Fortunately, the fog had cleared in time for us to find our pitch to take on Oratory Prep School 2. It was a competitive game but saw Abingdon Prep finding more space and running at pace. We then took on the Manor Hurricanes where we worked hard to cleanly remove the opposition’s tags. Manor Lightning were our next opponents. The boys found this game easier than the others so focused on using the entire width of the pitch and passing the ball confidently. Oratory Prep School 1 was by far our toughest game, they had some fast runners and seemed to be able to escape our grasp when attempting to remove a tag. The final game of the festival saw the teams merge and form mixed teams. After some initial reservation, all the children involved in Abingdon Prep v Manor Storm enjoyed themselves and learnt from playing with new peers and against old friends.
The ethos of the festival was to promote play and have fun therefore scores were not formally recorded, but good play and sportsmanship were rewarded by all involved. However, I can disclose that Abingdon Prep put the ball down over the line more frequently than their opposition in every game! Well done, boys!
