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A tournament win for the U14s in Zurich
Alastair McCaig28 Oct - 14:32
Zug under 14s turn on the style in Zurich tournament win.
With 18 players available for selection, the coaches decided to split the numbers with a strong twelve playing as Zug and the remaining six joining forces with Tagerwilen to form a second team. In Switzerland, the rules are fairly strict on the number of minutes teams (players) are allowed to play rugby at a tournament and rather than split that time, the coaches decided to ensure everyone would get the maximum amount of minutes on the pitch.
The previous weekend in Lugano had seen the team playing on a mud bath but with good weather all week, optimism was high that playing conditions were going to be much more suited to the “Zug Style” of running rugby.
Our first game was against a combined Bern & Thun team, who had 5 subs on the bench. Before the game had started, the coaching team had set some clear goals for the team: we expected them to bring effort, skill and structure to their play. We wanted to see them work from phase to phase and wait for the openings to appear, then use their passing skills to get the ball out wide and use the pace we had in our full-back and wingers. On purpose, we had kept the warm-up session light as we were playing all day without any substitutes. The first half was slightly messy and both teams had their moments but as the game wore on, the Zug team's structure began to tell and the fans were treated to a feast of running rugby with a final score of 7 - 2 in Zug's favour.
Our second game in Group A was against NSRV East; a team made up of players from Winterthur, Tagerwilen, Wurenlos & Luzern. The standard of Zug’s clearing out at the ruck in the first game had been as good as we have seen all season. This standard however was raised in the second game and a quick lead was put in place by a dominant Zug team. Just after the half when we took a 5-0 lead, it was agreed that the NSRV team could add an extra player making it 12 against 13. As Zug added another try, NSRV ended the game with 14 players on the pitch against Zug’s 12. The two-player advantage was enough to stop us from scoring against NSRV again but not enough to stop Zug from keeping a clean sheet.
Fittingly, the final was Zug against the hosts Zurich. Both teams had topped their groups and had been scoring tries freely so this promised to be a tight match. Zug managed to get on the score sheet first and had spurned a couple of opportunities to stretch the lead when Zurich struck from deep in their own half. Having run almost the length of the pitch, the Zurich player only needed to touch the ball down in the Zug try area to level the scores but exceptional tracking back from Zug saw him being bundled into touch before he could. A second Zug try before halftime gave the score line an unwarranted feeling at the break. Almost from the start of the second, Zug increased its lead. The team had started with real determination and a well worked play down the left saw an excellent try finished off out wide. Now trailing by three tries, the Zurich team fell slightly flat and Zug took full advantage by scoring two more tries before the final whistle closing out the game 5 - 0 winners.
Over the course of the day, Zug scored 18 tries and conceded only 2. This of course was great, however the coaching team were more impressed with the development we had seen in structuring our attacks and organising our defence. As much as the players would prefer to only play matches at training, it does demonstrate the importance of skills training. As always we appreciate all the effort that was put in by the players and the parents. Well done Zug.
The previous weekend in Lugano had seen the team playing on a mud bath but with good weather all week, optimism was high that playing conditions were going to be much more suited to the “Zug Style” of running rugby.
Our first game was against a combined Bern & Thun team, who had 5 subs on the bench. Before the game had started, the coaching team had set some clear goals for the team: we expected them to bring effort, skill and structure to their play. We wanted to see them work from phase to phase and wait for the openings to appear, then use their passing skills to get the ball out wide and use the pace we had in our full-back and wingers. On purpose, we had kept the warm-up session light as we were playing all day without any substitutes. The first half was slightly messy and both teams had their moments but as the game wore on, the Zug team's structure began to tell and the fans were treated to a feast of running rugby with a final score of 7 - 2 in Zug's favour.
Our second game in Group A was against NSRV East; a team made up of players from Winterthur, Tagerwilen, Wurenlos & Luzern. The standard of Zug’s clearing out at the ruck in the first game had been as good as we have seen all season. This standard however was raised in the second game and a quick lead was put in place by a dominant Zug team. Just after the half when we took a 5-0 lead, it was agreed that the NSRV team could add an extra player making it 12 against 13. As Zug added another try, NSRV ended the game with 14 players on the pitch against Zug’s 12. The two-player advantage was enough to stop us from scoring against NSRV again but not enough to stop Zug from keeping a clean sheet.
Fittingly, the final was Zug against the hosts Zurich. Both teams had topped their groups and had been scoring tries freely so this promised to be a tight match. Zug managed to get on the score sheet first and had spurned a couple of opportunities to stretch the lead when Zurich struck from deep in their own half. Having run almost the length of the pitch, the Zurich player only needed to touch the ball down in the Zug try area to level the scores but exceptional tracking back from Zug saw him being bundled into touch before he could. A second Zug try before halftime gave the score line an unwarranted feeling at the break. Almost from the start of the second, Zug increased its lead. The team had started with real determination and a well worked play down the left saw an excellent try finished off out wide. Now trailing by three tries, the Zurich team fell slightly flat and Zug took full advantage by scoring two more tries before the final whistle closing out the game 5 - 0 winners.
Over the course of the day, Zug scored 18 tries and conceded only 2. This of course was great, however the coaching team were more impressed with the development we had seen in structuring our attacks and organising our defence. As much as the players would prefer to only play matches at training, it does demonstrate the importance of skills training. As always we appreciate all the effort that was put in by the players and the parents. Well done Zug.
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