Sunday 22 March - Surrey Development festival

Those of you who were at the festival today, may have noticed the water bottles we were able to bring on at half time. These have been funded from further sponsorship from RBS, courtesey of Tracie Dugmore. The funds secured will also be used to purchase new poles and more water bottles to cover the whole squad as we hope to enter A, B and C festivals next season. We should not forget that the sponsorship from RBS has already paid for the two day tents we use at festivals and of course the sponsorship from BOC, which paid for the squad jackets. Many thanks to Tracie & Antony Dugmore and RBS & BOC for these funds which have benefitted the players.

Anway, turning to today, we were lucky enough to be able to enter two teams in the festival, and this gave the opportunity for everyone in the whole squad, who was available, to be able to take part in the Surrey festivals. For some of our players this was their first festival attendance a matter of weeks after joining Camberley Rugby club.

The Black and Golds squads played in separate pools. Although the Golds did not achieve any victories in their pool, they did score tries in every game, something not all the teams were able to do. This is something to be held as an achievement as it showed we did break through the defences where others could not. In their last game, they held out well against their opponents who repeatedly turned over the ball, but unfortunately we were not able to take full advantage of this. We turned over the ball ourselves and so need to concentrate on skills of accurate passing and catching which we can carry through to next season.

The Blacks had a little more success; in winning their first game 8-4 they demonstrated some good play - solid defending, support and passing of the ball. In their second game, they fought back from being 3-0 down at half time to bring the score back to 3-3 and lost out on the final play of the match to go down 3-4. In the last two games our play did not demonstrate the same levels of accomplishment and due to small mistakes, that resulted in turnover ball, we lost these games too. Again errors in passing and catching contributed. These are core skills and players need to concentrate on passing accurately and keeping hold of the ball. Support is also vital.

Next week we have another festival at Effingham and Leatherhead. For those who remember last year, we can only hope that conditions and the weather are better - this however would not be difficult!