Kids made of sterner stuff
In spite of the heavy rain of Saturday night and Sunday morning which put paid to the adult cricket in Tayside this weekend, it would appear that the youngsters are made of sterner stuff as the annual McDonalds Trophy for under 12’s went ahead at Arbroath.
The Forfarshire eight found themselves in a group with Kinross, Carlton and one of three Arbroath teams as they tried to make it through to the semi finals. Kinross were fresh from Scottish Cup wins at under 13 and under 15 level and clearly their junior section is in great shape. The Forfarshire boys batted first and unfortunately some over aggressive batting lead to a number of wickets falling against a tight Kinross attack. In spite of a good performance in the field the opening game was lost fairly comfortably.
Carlton came next and Forfarshire this time fielded first. A good performance saw them restrict the Edinburgh side to 242 and hopes were high of a victory. Lessons were learned from the first game and some sensible batting ensued and with a win in sight the last pair came to the wicket. Unfortunately a tight decision went against us and we ultimately fell just four runs short in an exciting finish.
Our last game against the Arbroath outfit saw us field first and restrict them to a total of 227. This proved easily within our reach and we ran out comfortable 20 run victors.
The close loss to Carlton meant we just failed to reach the semi finals so it was into a fifth/sixth play off against Broomhall. We again found ourselves batting first and there followed an excellent display which mixed the required defence against the good balls with attacking shots against the poorer deliveries and a good total was posted. Our best bowling and fielding display saw the game won in some style and a fifth place in the tournament was secured.
The boys all worked very hard across the day and some fine cricket was played which augurs well for the future.
The team on the day consisted of Jack S, Christian R, Chris C, Craig McC, Mathew M, Harry I, Duncan F and Paul K.
The same squad, with the addition of Hamish and Shaun also competed in the John Cooper Tournament at Stirling last Sunday. In conditions fluctuating between wet and monsoon the boys played three matches and out of the eight teams competing, they finished in a very impressive third place overall finishing only behind very strong Ferguslie and Arbroath sides.
Given the very slippery underfoot conditions and torrential rain it said much for the boys attitude that they stuck to their task and played some good cricket in very difficult circumstances.
The adults accompanying the group agreed that there was no way they would have even contemplated playing cricket in these conditions and therefore it does indeed seem that the youngsters at Forthill are made of sterner stuff than the senior players.