Coming so early in the season, Richmond Festival is always an interesting one. How will teams have adapted to the law variations for that age group? How will the refs? Which teams have created an effective game plan?

It was therefore especially heartening to see how much Quins U10s improved over their four games.

Having fought our way through the Sunday morning traffic on the A316, Quins arrived at the RAG with a solid squad and plenty of subs so were good to go for our game against Hammersmith & Fulham.

Who were a player short.

With a Quins player dutifully turning his shirt inside out, we were able to play with the regulation 8-a-side and Quins were quickly showing their cards with an all-action, offloading game.

To their credit, Hammers were also playing some great rugby and the result was an end-to-end match. Where Quins could improve was perhaps in our defence.

Hmmm, a Quins team playing an attractive attacking game but a little lapse in defence? That’ll never catch on.

Our second match was against our friends from Chiswick. Some differences of opinion around refereeing left Quins baffled, frustrated and (despite dominating play) scoreless at half-time. It was however hugely pleasing to see that none of the players complained at all to the ref. One of the coaches my have had a quiet word or three but the players showed nothing but respect.

And the frustration quickly evaporated as Quins scored from a barnstorming run almost immediately after kick-off. The first-half superiority was retained but with a more empathetic referee, the rewards were achieved as Quins scored some lovely team tries.

Two games down and our attack was purring. Were the defensive wrinkles ironed out? Ironsides and their man mountain would definitely put that to the test.

In truth, we were probably overawed as soon as he went on one of his trademark runs and it took most of the match for Quins to even make a genuine attempt at a tackle. However, by the end there was much more bravery showed which showed what we can do.

And set us up nicely for our last match: Hampstead.

The attack was flowing, the support play was constant, the defence was terrier-like in its aggression and the team spirit was clear.
Spurred on by a highly vocal sideline, Quins put on a real display; playing the most fluent 12 minutes of rugby they’ve put together in some time.

It was an awesome way to end a successful day.