Boys of the Future: by Kim Conchie

It was a pleasure coaching Falmouth Under 14s last season. They listened, they learned and they improved as individual players and, most importantly, as a team.

It was a season that contained excitement, anxious moments and, finally, the greatest satisfaction in beating Penzance & Newlyn 22-15 in the Cornwall Under 14s Cup Final to become the first Falmouth county champions in a long while. Like all success, it came as a result of hard work by the players, their parents and the coaching team and thanks must go to all who gave up their time to help, notably David Reed, Steve Burrows, Rob Parry, Ian Mailes, John Spargo and our official photographer Colin Watts who has produced a magnificent book of the season.

We lost only twice, once to Redruth at the beginning of the season, who we subsequently beat in the return fixture, and Minehead Barbarians which was the third game on tour in three days and weariness from playing and making merry took its toll. The tour to West Somerset had been arranged for the weekend before the Cup final so the bonding of the squad and the defeat to Minehead were both timely positive influences on the players.

As well as the Cup final and the tour there were some other magic moments. I remember the victory over Redruth (our first ever), the game on the first evening of tour under floodlights at Taunton and the narrow win over feisty Wadebridge – this one refereed by me which I did not enjoy.

Some parents still think rugby is a dangerous sport. I think the Under 14s had three injuries last season none of which required hospital treatment. Compare this with the summer holidays: one fell off his bike and cut his head, another broke his thumb ‘mucking about’, a third bashed his leg against a rock while he was swimming in the sea, a gym incident resulted in a broken arm for one of our best forwards and so on.

Roll on the safety of the rugby season in which the Under 15s (as they become) will be in search of more silverware.