Tadley Tigers U8 & U7 Great Day Out with London Irish Sunday 16th January 2011
The Tadley Tigers U8, U7 and two from the U9s had an exceptional day out with London Irish (LI) last Sunday. The day started with the Masterclass at 1030 at Bearwood College Rugby pitches, where Ben and Joe, two of the LI community coaches, put 22 of the Tigers young players through their paces with some warm up exercises, skills training sessions and finishing with intensive 5 aside tag games. The LI coaches presented medals, t-shirts and certificates to all the players and a rugby ball signed by the LI team to the Tigers club.
From Bearwood we moved on to the Madejski stadium, home of London Irish RFC and Reading FC, to be greeted by Digger the Wolfhound LI mascot in his pound for some face painting and bouncy castle action. Once painted up Digger led us on a pitch-side tour of the stadium, where we bumped into Mike Catt (former England star and now skills coach at LI) in the dugouts prepping for the game against Ospreys.
We were then escorted to the briefing centre for Q&A with Declan Danaher, a ten year veteran with LI who is injured at the moment so had plenty of time to spend with the Tigers players. The Tigers put Declan to the test, grilling him for 45 minutes, with some tough questions and once they let him off the hook he kindly posed for photos and signed 22 flags, programmes and assorted objects.
From the briefing centre to the match (stopping to talk/ mob a couple more of the LI players on the way), London Irish versus Ospreys, where LI had a convincing win 24-12, to break their run of bad form. Half time saw Digger return to collect the Tigers for a pitchside photo
A fantastic day was had by the Tigers players, Mums, Dads and Coaches, a brilliant experience for the boys
Many thanks to Debbie Bale, Jon Barker at Tadley and Chloe Bray, Ben Lee at London Irish for all their hard work in organising the day
