The Winterthur tournament was our second of the season. Our main struggle with the U8's is to find enough teams to play against and despite only having 1 group of 4 teams Winterthur did a great job of getting a strong Barba's team next to their own, to face our two Zug teams.

We decided to run a blue team with mainly older kids, however two younger ones broke into this group which made us very proud.
The white team mainly had younger players. We decided to place two of our older players in this group to show some leadership and add structure and again they did not disappoint.

The white team played with a non flat line structure for the first time and that showed in the first game. The spirit was there, but being the first match, it was understandable we couldn't get the win. We played each other next and then they played Winterthur which the white team narrowly lost to, starting to score more and more tries.
The afternoon continued with another 3 games in reversed order and after lunch the white went out to beat Winterthur for their first win as a younger team with a great and spirited performance. That win meant they finished joined 3rd and the icing on the cake was that two of our kids who's birthdays were around the tournament, managed to score there very first tries. What an amazing achievement and proud moment in their young careers.

The blue team is starting to understand the structure we want them to play and are starting to understand that you win and loose as team and that it doesn't matter who scores the tires to win. They stuck together, they fought for one another and even when things went tough they stuck to our plan and came out with the win.
In the end it was a complete domination wining the tournament in 1st place with a try count of 27-7. We were pushed to the limit by the barba's team including players from Rottwil, la cote and Tägerwilen, who showed great skill and speed but our team dug deep to come out on top 2-1 and 4-2 in both games.

Seeing all kids progressing every week, enjoying the game and starting to form friendships and playing as a team for one another fills us with great joy and pride and we are looking forward to the next tournament in Zurich in 2 weeks time.

Until then HOPP ZUG!!!