The newly formed Derby Colts coached by Michael Dickens and Campbell Wigley with Team managers Phil and Helen Clarke would like to thank the following people for their pre-season and ongoing support:
Martyn Murney, Rodger Mather, Mark Bradley, Roxy Fearon, Graham Finlay, Luke Ellis and Simon Moon.
We would also like to say a huge thank you to Derby University for sponsoring our match shirts. As you can see from the photo they look great.
Saturday 3rd September was the first outing for the new team at Colts Fest. A 10 aside festival for 12 teams based at Newark RFC.
Match 1: Derby vs Paviors
For their first ever match as a new team, the lads started really well with some excellent scrummaging and some hard hits. The match was quite even but Paviors came through as winners 2 tries to 1.
Match 2: Derby vs Newark
After scrummaging so we’ll in the first match, it was disappointing that Newark requested uncontested scrums due to them not having their experienced front row. The lads played well but were again confused when the majority of Newark’s line outs did not include a lift. Again some big hits by our lads but the match ended 4 tries to nil.
Match 3: Our final match of the group was against Boston, a team we had not come up against before. The Derby lads got their heads down, and produced an excellent display of rugby, including some amazing tackles against some very big players. Derby were victorious with a 4 try to 3 win.
From our scores on the rounds, we were placed into the semi-final of the plate. The lads were geared up for this on the back of their win but unfortunately, our opposition had a few injuries and decided to forfeit the match and leave the festival which gave us a bye.
Derby had a very long wait of about 90 minutes until they played their final which was again against Paviors.
The lads did us proud with some dominance in the scrums, great tackles, rucking and some real speed and great stepping from our backs. Unfortunately, it didn’t go Derby’s way and the final score was 21-19 to Paviors.
We have some areas to work on including depth at the breakdown but to say that it was the first time these lads had played together and the entire team were just 16 years old they put up a great fight against mainly older and more experienced Colts.
We are really looking forward to a great season.
