Match Report: Cranleigh U16  v Old Emanual U16 – Result 43 -16

For you lucky fans of CRFC we get two match reports for this smashing win for our U16’s team:

Report by Marcus Trench

As with most things with this great club the reporting had improved. A sensible looking club vice president with a notebook and barber was a vast improvement on the screaming lunatic with Beat’s buds who only reported on his son and lads 200 miles away on holiday. However respectively and tentatively I have been given the green light to say a few!

The Youngs had a nice lie in and arrived for the second half in bright sunshine to see all our mates (well those still talking to us..!) and the Crane’s. As well as the reporter the other immediate improvement was a refreshment truck by the pitch with amazing and great value bacon rolls and hot chocolate with marsh mallows.

The South Africans were looking smug after their victory (yet again) and there was some good chat from M-Dogg about the ‘bib and vaping gate’ handbags with a Hagrid like coach from the Battersea game a couple of weeks back. Hagrid sounded like the Irish landlord from the Merton pub that wan now being muted as our tour destination by Dougie due to GCSE’s..!

On the pitch we (if I may be so bold as to use ‘we’ still) were up against Old Emanuel’s. A large an organised looking pack with some strong runners in the backs. More improvements on our side included a large squad with lots of new faces (to a sigh of relief from our ´Ben Stiller’ Henry – please all watch Zoolander). When we arrived, we were already up 10 after a close first half but we rocked the second half with tries from Matt Matt, Oscar H (2) and D, great runs from Hugo and a man of the match performance by Alex. 

The game was a little scrappy, but I think that was more due to big hits and good turnover work by the opposition slowing down our flow. Josef, Carlo, Dom and lots of other new lads were making holes in their defence and the speedsters, notably Will, Oscar H and Oscar D were making great yards. The essential 9-10 combination was looking great with some lovely runs by Dante and Rory was distributing and kicking well. Line outs now being competed and looked like we were getting the hang of these too. 

Despite their pressure, we were the ones that converted all the good moves and it finished with a 43-17 victory for the Renegades.  In fact, it was testament to how well this Renegade’s were playing (another nice improvement along with the angry chicken errr Crane) that Russ and Rob actually looked vaguely disappointed over their Guinness despite a 30 point win margin.  Great reffing by Rob, grub by Jose and birthday the day before for Lisa. Henry signed autographs for Dougie, the Guinness was excellent and the lads were happy and loving their club rugby.

Huge congrats to M-Dogg and all the coaching staff for going against the grain in a tough Rugby world by improving and adding numbers to this amazing group of players. We will definitely come and see more games and I may even be let loose on the ‘Merton’ tour! 

GoCranes and GoRenegades! 

Report by John Bailey

As the score suggests Cranleigh had a comfortable win against  Emanual without being in 100 per cent form . 

Emannual were a big side but Cranleigh were able to edge most set scrums and were excellent in the lineouts.

It was only 4 minutes when Oscar Digntan out paced the Emanual  defence .They  added  another  four scores against one before half time .A little more precision would of added two more Half Time 26 -10 

The second half with changes made was in comparison a bit scrappy  .

 Cranleigh  back row snuffed out a lot of Emanual ball and there was  some excellent 

Tackling. Cranleigh scored another three tries with only on in reply from Emanual 

This was a good work out from this talented  side with plenty of energy. Russel and his coaches can improve the skills and game management as the season progresses.