Wigan U9 v Orrell U9

Players: Harry, Daniel, both Patricks, Nathan, George, Harris, Brandan, Connor, Levi, James

Weather: Windy and cold

Pitch: at a 45 degree angle

The performance produced by the U9s this week had this reporter searching his sporting thesaurus looking for superlatives. The boys were nothing short of marvellous/ sensational/ wonderful. In testing conditions, they never let their performance level drop lower than miraculous (cheers Rogets).

The under foot conditions were firm (but then water can't settle on a one in three incline). The temperatures were icy. The strong wind threatened to play havoc with their precision kicking game. Yet most importantly, we were playing away from home.

Orrell set off in the first (of three) half, down hill with the wind. Yet they were met with a wall of black. Tackles flew in from all angles. The strength of the defence was a feature of the morning. Everyone played their part. Orrell were a well organised outfit with some skilful runners but they found it difficult to penetrate the Wigan "ring of steel". (NB. I heard some posh parents say this once in Altrincham or somewhere. Sounded good.)

Connor opened the scoring after some excellent running from Harris. Indeed Harris and Connor combined well all morning with Harris in particular proving elusive. Nathan scorched/ blistered/ burned over for his first of four tries on the morning. Time and again Wigan proved devastating when the ball got wide. Coach Butler's mantra of "run straight, run hard, try not to drop it" was personified by all the boys.

At the "turn around" (we didn't) we led 7-4. The game was quite evenly balanced but then Wigan changed up a gear (checking their mirrors and signalling first). Patrick Horcan was in sensational form. With his trademark gum shield hanging out of his mouth he smashed into the Orrell defence like a rampant wildebeest. Orrell had no answer to his sheer physicality. Patrick also led from the front with his tackling. Brandan tackled Orrell out of the game in this second stanza. His technique was exemplary. James also put his body on the line to keep out attackers.

In the third stanza, playing downhill, gale force wind at their backs Wigan were rampant/ unbridled. Daniel was unleashed and used his devastating open field running to good effect. George and Harry never shirked a contact and carried the ball up the middle to help unleash the wide runners. Levi bravely battled the conditions to put in a solid handling performance with cold hands. Patrick Hollins, having briefly gone into "stand by" mode rebooted himself, got involved and smashed through the line for a popular try (his mum only usually hears about these collectors items but actually witnessed this one!).

The final score for the morning was 22-8. My thesaurus doesn't have an alternative for the word "shellacking".

Man of the Match - The Herculean Patrick Horcan (not easy to say)

Coach's player of the match - The excellent James

Post match meal - always an excellent range of post match food at Upholland. Can't get a pint though.