After a friendly mixed warm up game against Medway in early September, the Sevenoaks Academy U16A team faced Thanet in their first full outing of the season. The two teams hadn’t played each other since before Covid, so it was going to be a voyage of discovery for both.
The Oaks forwards came out all guns blazing and dominated the breakdown to give their backs clean ball. Brennan O’Keefe capitalised on this and with quick thinking and quick feet scored one of the quickest hattricks in history at the beginning of the first half. Thanet struggled to cope with the Oaks intensity and gave away a number of penalties in their own half. Hamish McQueen took the opportunity to slot a conversion from in front of the posts. The Oaks back row were on fire, with some very strong carries from George Booth, Harry Bouverie and Arthuro Stephan. Bouverie linked up with his backs to cross for another score under the posts. A sweet backs move with a 15m left handed pass from Joel Walter put Will Taylor in for the 5th try of the match. Louie Ashenden chased hard for each of Oak’s kicks pinning Thanet in their half. Ashenden was rewarded with a fantastic break down the left wing following one of his kick chases to cross over in the corner. With 4 conversions from McQueen, the half time score was 41-0 to the Oaks.
Thanet came out stronger in the second half. Their back three learnt from the first half and covered Oaks kicking game making some strong carries in response. Oaks maintained their shape and after continued pressure John Hollman ran through 3 of the opposition to go over for the first try of the second half. The Oaks forwards continued to put the pressure on at the breakdown providing high quality ball to both the backs and hard line running forward pods. Bouverie went over for his second try and, not to be outdone, O’Keefe broke another tackle and went over for his fourth try. McQueen slotted the conversions of Oaks final two tries to bring the score to 60-0. In the last play of the match the Oaks took their eye off the ball, spilling it in a tackle, which enabled the Thanet winger to run 30 metres for a consolation converted try. With a final score of 60-7, the Oaks U16s can be very proud of a fantastic start to the season.
Squad: Taylor Nash, Jake Borawiak, Colby Bedford-Eatwell, Harry Gullet, Noah Bruce, Arthuro Stephan, Harry Bouverie, George Booth, Max Harrison, Hamish McQueen, Harry Barnard, Joel Walter, Brennan O’Keefe, Will Taylor, Louie Ashenden, John Hollman, Dylan Tootill, JC Vermeulen, Harry Gullet, Josh Martin, Zac Loder