The U14 Rugby team retain the County Schools rugby title
The Judd School retained the U14 County Schools rugby title with a superb victory 36-7 over Gravesend Grammar School, in the final at Gravesend rugby clubs under floodlights.
Judd had beaten Maidstone, Dartford and Sevenoaks schools to reach the final and had to deal with a vociferous home crowd.
Judd started at breakneck speed and they chased their opening kick like a pack of wolves. With great rucking from Bass and excellent lineout play by Benji they allowed the backs to move the ball quickly to Sam to score one of his 3 tries of the evening inside the first few minutes. A second try soon followed. A skillful tackle from Chris led to a penalty after a lovely loop from a line out by Nate and then more quick handling by Chris and Billy, linking to give Sam another early try. A third try in the first half came from a incisive switch in the centres following two big carries from Nate, then a great offload by Sid and more precise handling, seeing Philip dive in for a great team try to see Judd lead 17-0 after an incredible 9 minutes of rugby. In between the tries, Enoch, Dexter, Jaiden and Miles were laying a solid platform with great line speed, good tackling especially from Oliver and purposeful carrying in the forwards and Charlie was putting the lineout under immense pressure. .
The final score in the half, leaving it 24-0 was the result of a perfect kick from Billy and a great team chase, leaving Emilio to dummy and go under the posts.
The second half saw an upturn in fortunes for Gravesend Grammar as they got on the score sheet from their own kick chase and another effort held up over the line by Dexter and Benji. Eventually, Alex put in one of his 3 try saving tackles and then Louis cleared well and hard work from Enoch and Zayne saw Judd move up the pitch and put GGS under pressure with Sam scoring an intercept try under the posts. Judd were unlucky not to score when Phil nearly finished superbly but with nearly the last play of the game Chris tapped and ran over from a scrum penalty to finish the game 36-7 to win the trophy for the 11th time since the competition started in 2000.