Coventry Bears

Carvell Coventry Bears Juniors started their season over the weekend with some mixed results. The U14’s kicked off first at home to Birmingham Bulldogs on Saturday on the hottest day of the year.
Carvell Coventry Bears Australian star Scott Clendenning –Fenton attended the game
“For some of the children this was not only their very first game of league but also their very first game of rugby so we all knew that is was going to be a big test for all our players” he said after watching the children’s efforts. The game started off very evenly matched with some good attack work from the Bears and were lead from the front by team captain Adam Barnett who’s tackling and running with the ball was impressive all way through the game. The Bulldogs opened the score-line first with some strong running from their backs this was followed by a long period where the Bears did not touch the ball and the Bulldogs captilised by scoring 3 more tries. When the Bears finally got their hands on the ball they scored with some wonderful footwork by experienced league player Brian Putnam, conversion was kicked by Warwick Whitehead. Half time 28-6. In the second half bulldogs applied the pressure again and the pressure worked with them scoring virtually straight away from kick off. The final score ended up 44-6 but this did reflect the hard work put in by all the players involved. Coach Mark Hyslop was extremely proud of the players, “They played well, with some fine-tuning we know we can get that score line turned round, we have some good tacklers in Adam and Oshane Mitchell and in attack we looked good”.

The under12’s kicked off their season the day after away at Telford in their first festival of the season. With only one training session for some of them we knew this would be a hard task for our players but they went away and played with maturity beyond their years. The first game was against an experienced Telford team. Coventry captained by Elliot Sheepy in only his second season of league lead from the front, with some excellent tackling. AJ Beatty opened the scoreline this opened the floodgates with more tries coming from George Moore and Nathan Wakelin. This was followed by a great individual performance by Oliver Smith who scored from a scrum. Final score was 5 tries to 2 to Coventry. Coventry then played against Nottingham Outlaws and it was pretty much the same scoreline for the Bears with a 5 tries to 1 win. Coach Peter Parker was extremely proud of the children that played and their attitude throughout the day. He is now hoping that more players will get picked for the Midlands U12’s Representive team that already hosts 5 Carvell Coventry Bears players If anyone is interested in playing for Carvell Coventry Bears junior teams then please contact the Bears development officer Debbie Drake on 07879 687847 or visit the website www.coventrybears.co.uk