All three Skolars Junior teams were in action on Saturday, with the 14’s and 16’s playing their fixtures at home and the 18’s playing away at Greenwich.
London Skolars 18’s are half-way through their season now, and met their toughest opponents yet in Greenwich Admirals 18’s. In warm, dry weather at Greenwich, conditions were perfect for Rugby League, with the match being played on a 4G pitch.
The game started with a high completion rate from London Skolars, who were getting to a lot of their kicks and Greenwich Admirals making errors out wide, turning the ball over early in the tackle count. London Skolars got a repeat set, with Greenwich Admirals making a mistake in their own half. With good hands Dion Chapman found Michael Linskey to dummy and go over to score, converted by Michael Cawthorn. Skolars held Greenwich out for 20 minutes, then unfortunately stopped completing their sets and had back to back tries scored against them. Skolars were struck another blow with David Ogufere getting sin binned for 10 minutes, leaving Skolars to defend a strong confident Greenwich team for 10 minutes. The back to back defensive sets and heat started taking its toll on Skolars, going in at half time 20-6 down.
The second half was unfortunately overshadowed by an incident, which resulted in a red card for the Greenwich Admirals player involved. London Skolars finished the stronger of the teams, with a well deserved team try coming from Louie Sutherland, again converted by Michael Cawthorn. The man of the match performance was a close call, with Dion Chapman being very creative with his go forward and work rate, but it has to go to Illiess Macani, making himself available for runs, and making back to back tackles. End score 34-12 to Greenwich Admirals.
Skolars under 16’s displayed 30 minutes of outstanding Rugby League in this weekend’s encounter with The Hurricanes of Croydon. However it came too late, after letting in six unanswered tries in the first half. The warm weather and hard ground suited the quick and agile Skolars, but it wasn’t enough as the momentum of the much larger South London team was too great.
Again there were stand out performances from Essex duo Jack Avery and Jack Clover. Theo Dankos’s work rate was outstanding and impressed the onlooking Origin coaches. Ben Carey was solid at hooker, with his service from dummy half improving game after game. Sahid Kapaka injected some pace and determination on the right wing, scoring Skolars only try off a break from half back Guy Reed. Reed was outstanding throughout and was the well deserved man of the match, with some great in-play kicking, and tactical offloading throughout the game. The final score was 44-6 but, with the second half scoring two tries to one in favour of Croydon, Skolars will be looking to carry on this performance next weekend, with a tough away trip to the Staines Titans in prospect.
Skolars under 14’s were also in action, playing hosts to Croydon Hurricanes 14’s, and went down to a 4-56 defeat.
