Under 18’s

Sunday 28^th January 2018

Our Under 18’s had their first hit out of the 2018 season by taking on Siddal from Halifax in the National Cup 1^st Round and with only 14 players went down by 19-14.

Under 14’s

Sunday 28^th January 2018

Stanningley  8-4 Wigan St Judes

Judes drew a tough encounter for their first game of season, Stanningley, in the early stages of the National Cup.  Today really felt like the odds were stacked against us, our coach was on holiday, weather was terrible and we’d been unable to train normally and haven’t managed any warm up games due to bad weather conditions, so we went into this game cold, not a good thing to do against such good opponents who had already secured a cup this season.  I think the  lack of preparation really showed in the first half as it took Judes a while to get in their stride and complete a set.  Stanningley were the first to score after Judes were wrongly called for a knock on which gave Stanningley a scrum close to Judes line, the ball was played out towards their left wing and they caught Judes napping on the blind side to dive over and score in the corner, but missed their conversion.  Judes struggled with their ball handling in the first half and bombed quite a few chances, turning over possession from a knock on in a dangerous position, putting themselves under too much pressure and Stanningley racked up another 4 points.  Judes did try to claw a try back before the half time whistle, when they were finally given a penalty for a flop and Lewis almost scored, doing everything he could to get the ball down, but Stanningley showed great strength and held him up.  Judes had got sucked into Stanningley’s game plan in the first half and had to come out the second half playing smarter.

Judes did come out fighting second half and in my opinion were the better team, not allowing Stanningley over the whitewash again.  Judes scored almost immediately, after a nice grubber from Callum sat up nicely for Ambrose to touch down, but the ref chalked it off saying we’d knocked on, bad call in my opinion.  After giving away one to many penalties Stanningley were put on a team warning and shortly after the ref had no option but to sin bin the Stanningley no. 13 for a shoulder barge.   Judes really should have capitalised on these next 10 minutes, but Stanningley rallied their troops well and Judes had one to many handling errors to deny them scoring, the points would just not come!  Judes were patient though and built enough pressure to be camped on their opponent’s line before Harvey Makin came crashing onto a short pass from Lewis to barge over and score.  We missed our own conversion, but were right back in the game, but the clock was against us.  Judes showed some great scrambling defence in this half and when it looked like Stanningley had an overlap, we were able to slide across and halt their attack.  Judes should have been given a drop out in their next set as a chip over was batted out of play by the Stanningley player, but the ref gave them a 20m tap, story of our game really!  You couldn’t fault our defence 2nd half, we soaked up everything Stanningley and the weather had to throw at us, but we just couldn’t secure the points we needed before time ran out and Stanningley took the game 8-4.

Taking nothing away from Stanningley, they are a really good team and played some brilliant rugby today, but I think a few more weeks into our season, with game time under our belt, the outcome would have been different.  Frustratingly, today wasn’t to be despite some fantastic efforts from the lads, especially our captain Kalan Devine, who again lead from the front.  We’ll get um next time lads!

Today’s Man of the Match was Reece Stanton, chosen by the Stanningley coach.  Reece started this season where he

left off last season, always a massive presence on the field.  Today displaying some massive hits and strong running and

a worthy man of the match.