After last week's training with King's College Hospital RFC they joined us at the Jubilee Ground in Catford for the Blackheath Festival, the first major tournament of the season.

New guidelines aim to reduce a winner takes all mentality with the focus being on skills rather than who can put out the biggest team, but it did not stop the event being hugely competitive with our boys delivering a number of outstanding displays that made coaches and parents very proud.

We played 5, won 3, drew 1, with our only loss against a Sevenoaks 1 side that were simply bigger and stronger than us.

We showed some great attacking rugby and wonderful, tenacious, pressing defence. Given this was the first time the boys and girls had played together competitively the results were fantastic. Everyone put in strong performances both in attack and defence.

Some moments do stand out for everyone: Matthew opened the scoring with a direct run, two ridiculous sidesteps and finished without anyone really laying a hand on him; Barney for a simply textbook front-on tackle on one of the biggest boys we met, putting him on his backside and stopping a certain try; Ollie who came back on in the last game after being injured and taking the ball and running hard at every opportunity to really lift us and secure the win; Megan, who although the smallest person on the pitch was always in the middle of things - simply fearless; Felix for a wonderful run down the right wing and scoring in the corner, only to be brought back for a foot in touch - surely a need for a 4th official at mini festivals if ever there was one; Jackson for any number of mazy runs, terrific sidesteps and great mauling support; Henry with some strong running straight into the heart of the defence, good strength to secure the ball in the tackle and his usual intelligent passing; Ellie for some great defending, strong work in the mauls and playing on while clearly struggling; Luke for aggressive defence alongside Matthew, desire to take responsibility and run, and brilliant work in the ruck, invariably the first in; Fernando for good attacking runs, lovely defensive work and nice timing of his passes; Alex who bravely came back on with Ollie in the second half of our last game when were in danger of looking more like the walking wounded than a rugby team.

It was a great day out, many thanks to the boys and girls from KCHRFC and their coach Andy - it was a real pleasure to work with you. Everyone did more than their fair share, especially in defence where their work rate was wonderful to watch. I imagine the players all slept very well!