All three Skolars Junior teams played home fixtures this weekend and we begin our round up of match action and results with London Skolars Under 18’s, who hosted Medway Dragons Under18’s in a curtain raiser to Skolars Carnegie Challenge Cup 4th round match against Widnes Vikings on Sunday
Both teams started strong with high completions, but still couldn’t get through the line to score. Skolars were boosted by a great defensive display from Twanda Mjuru.
Medway Dragons were the first to strike, after Skolars had to defend back to back sets, which was the case for the second try. Skolars struggled to get out of their half with a good defensive display coming from Medway.
The closest Skolars came to scoring was through Dion Chapman with a superb solo effort from the kick off, but he was halted by Medway Dragons full back. Half time score 0-20.
Medway Dragons u18’s started the second half where they left off, scoring down through the middle. To their credit Skolars heads never went down and they battled away scoring through Jaiah Benson. Skolars’ Man of the Match Dion Chapman then touched down, just left of the post, which was converted by Michael Cawthorn.
Full time score 10-44 to Medway Dragons.
After last week’s win in Essex against Brentwood the under 16s were looking to make it back to back wins on Saturday when they hosted Greenwich Admirals. The game started at a ferocious pace with both teams completing sets early and defending well.
Greenwich broke down the Skolars defence first with some excellent back moves. Skolars came back with some good running out of their own half, but were made to pay for mistakes by the Admirals. After struggling to get out of their own half, Skolars first points came from some great ingenuity on the behalf of Essex recruit Jack Avery. An early kick on the second tackle and a great chase from all the Skolars team lead to a try for Zack Maximan just before the half time hooter.
The second half started much the same as the first, with both teams looking to take a hold on the game. Skolars struggled to contain the physically dominant Admirals, who ran through a series of well worked tries in the second half. Uzair Abbas again provided some excellent go forward at 13 and will be looking to retain his place in the North London Origin squad off the back of his last few performances. The Jacks, Avery and Clover, both played extremely well and linked up throughout the game at 6 and 7. Jevon Riley was welcomed back after a stint on the injury bench and will be looking to build on his performance going into the next game.
Full time score 6-62 to Greenwich
Skolars under 14’s also played host to Greenwich and in a closely fought game went down to a narrow 32-40 defeat. After taking a 16-0 lead, Skolars appeared to be coasting. However, Greenwich came back in the second half in a superb advert for the London Junior League. The game could have gone either way until the final whistle with Greenwich sewing up the 2 compeition points with a length of the field try following sustained Skolars pressure trying to win the game.
Try scorers for the Skolars were; Shemar Shirley (2), Tuoyo Egodo (2), Josh Hecken and Sasha Agypong. George Bradley kicked 5 goals. Playing well for the under 14s were Harry Ford, Tuoyo Egodo, George Bradley and Josh Hecken.
