Royston U-15 26pts Welwyn 17pts A SCRATCH Royston team exceeded all expectations with a convincing home win over their well-organised opposition. Despite a gusting wind at their backs, Royston immediately fell on the back foot as the heavier Welwyn forw

Royston U-15 26pts Welwyn 17pts A SCRATCH Royston team exceeded all expectations with a convincing home win over their well-organised opposition. Despite a gusting wind at their backs, Royston immediately fell on the back foot as the heavier Welwyn forwards repeatedly pounded their line in the early exchanges. Only desperate tackling kept them out but not for long. Welwyn rumbled over to take a 7-0 lead. From the restart, Royston finally got hold of the ball and started to move it through their speedy back line. The ever-sharp scrum-half Patrick McGarry tapped a penalty to Peter Grieve, who stylishly evaded two tackles to open the Royston account, although the conversion was missed. Then it was the turn of Stuart Goldfinch to cut a swathe through the weak tackling Welwyn defence and touch down under the posts, converted by Grieve for a 12-7 lead. After half-time, Aidan Towner worked a planned penalty move to send Mark Richardson on a characteristic powerful run, breaking tackles to extend the lead following the conversion to 19-7. However, Royston's new-found self-belief wobbled badly as handling errors and missed tackles let in Welwyn, resurgent with the wind at their backs, to score two unconverted tries to cut the lead to 19-17. With five minutes left, Joe Parrish capped an outstanding man-of-the-match performance by beating three defenders and winning a race from his own half to score under the posts. Grieve's conversion put the victory beyond doubt. n Royston under-nines played host to Biggleswade and Letchworth on Sunday and enjoyed mixed fortunes against the two well-drilled visiting teams. First up for Royston was Biggleswade. Royston started sluggishly and were soon on the back foot. The visitors dominated the early exchanges and drove the ball upfield through their big forwards. Matters soon got worse as the home team lost Sam Copeland and Oliver Fraser after a clash of heads. But the home team stuck to the task and absorbed the early onslaught. Slowly Royston began to find their rhythm and, after a good period of pressure, Robbie Murdock received the ball on halfway and ran around the broken field defence to open the scoring against the run of play. Royston held the lead until the second half. Again Biggleswade took the game to Royston, and used their forwards to work the ball to the Royston line for their scrum half to dart over for the levelling score. Both teams had chances to clinch victory but neither could take the opportunity and the match ended in a hard fought 5-5 draw. In the second and final match Royston played Letchworth. Again Royston started slowly and were soon punished by a well-drilled Letchworth team when their winger set off on a weaving run and outflanked the defence to score. Royston were unable to respond and Letchworth began to dominate and scored two further tries through their forward to lead 15-0 at half-time. The hosts enjoyed better fortune in the second half and scored through Murdock after a well-worked penalty move. However, Letchworth rallied and there was enough time for a further score for the visitors to end the match 20-5 victors.