This year I would like to report on the teams from a coaching perspective as I have not been involved with any one team all of the time. This year we have been fortunate that a number of people have taken on the responsibility of coaching the teams. In the boys section the under 13 were coached by Chris Knapman, the under 15 by myself, with the help of Gareth Taylor and the under 17 by Gareth Taylor and Dave English. I have also helped out with the men’s team, but the bulk of the game coaching was by Dave. The ladies and the girls have been in the hands of Jon Beale and Charlotte Gale. The men’s, ladies and girls report will be done separately, I will just give an over view of the junior boys section.

The under 13 boys, this year played in the central league based at Oxford Brooks University and I must thank Kirsty Britnell team managing both the under 13 and under 15 group of players. Unfortunately there were only three teams; Oxford Angels, Wantage Warriors and Chiltern. The Oxford Angels were dominant, not losing a game, but Chiltern and Wantage were more evenly matched and over the course of the season we managed to beat them a couple of times. What has been encouraging in this age group is we have picked up a number player throughout the season and the team is now playing much better and more competitively. A number of the boys will be representing Wycombe in the Bucks Youth Games on June 6th; they are Saif Jarrel, Suleman Jarrel, Edan To, Ashton Linney, Owen Toms, Lewis Bisseker, while Max Dugdale will be playing for the Chiltern Area.

The under 15 boys this year also played in the Central venue league based at Oxford Brooks University, fortunately there were five teams involved. The results in the season were very mixed as we had to play a number of the under 13 boys in this team and on several occasions we could not field a team. However it is not all doom and gloom, just before the play offs we had an influx of players, which gave us a much stronger unit for the play off tournament. The team got through the qualifying rounds only to lose in the final to Oxford Sharks 39 – 45. My thanks go to Gareth Taylor, who coached the boys on that day as I was away on holiday! There are a number of options for this group next season, but it will mean recruiting players so we have more consistant squad.

The under 17 boys played in the Bucks Central Venue League. Firstly I must thank both Dan and Caroline Coward for taking on the responsibility of getting the players together, which in itself was quite a difficult task as most of the boys failed to respond to emails and text messages! Also up until the Christmas period the league itself was a shambles, but once the issues were resolved it ran very smoothly. Again the results were mixed, a number of the games were lost due to the fact we could not get out 10 players, so we were always giving teams a start in games. Never the less we won some games finished 6th out of 9 teams, could have been much better if some of the boys made a bigger commitment to the team. My thanks go to Gareth Taylor and Dave English for coaching the team.

Both the leagues we played in this season are changing the age groups to under 14, under 16 and under 18, this will mean that we can keep the same teams together for the forth coming season. Also up for consideration is to put a second men’s team into the Wessex League and use a mixture of the older boys and some of the men in this team. There is much to ponder on, but will depend on the support we get from the players!

Rod Cooke
Coach