National Under 20 Trials

Frankie Goulding and Tom Williams where the only Representatives from Ford as Chloe Jackson has only just returned to full training from the injury she received at the National Championships in October.
The day did not start too good with a lose from Tom. After starting the fight well and looking very sharp and alert. Tom dominated his opponent controlling him with good kumi kata. Then a lapse of concentration let his opponent drop in for a seoi nage, thinking he could ride it and looking for the shime waza, tom was cought for
10.
A mistake but, a lesson learned, he went on to win his next 4 fights to get him to the fight off for the bronze medal. Tom lost this fight to take a fith place but on the whole, after a mistake made, this to me was one of the best performances to come from Tom for a long time.

Frankie was looking sharp from the off, looking very strong and he had a good pace to his performance. maneuvering his partner he set him up for an explosive drop seoi nage for 10 points, a good positive start.
His next started much the same, as with Tom, both had vast improvements in their transition work. Frankie pull off a shime waza for 10 after dropping with his opponent after a failed attack, this was very concise and was very effective.
Reaching the semi final see Frankie against an old adversary with Frankie yet to get a win from their meetings. Frankies kumi kata has improved tremendously over the last year and controlled most of the fight. Again, a lack of concentration for a second , see his opponent drop for a kataguruma which scored ippon.
Frankie's next fight was for bronze, this was against a player that seemed almost a foot taller than Frankie and looking for the over head grip. He handled this well, although throwing in couple of lose attacks Frankie still manage to disrupt his opponents performance. Frankie snatched a quick grip and attacked simultaneously with a seoi nage, a very good 10 point score to take bronze.

All in all, a very good performance from the 2 Ford players and I believe when we look at the video analysis they will see a marked difference from past performances.

Well done boys

Bill...