Once again as a cold January afternoon rolled around and the Skolars and Wigan teams began to arrive at the HAC, there were already some great skills on show out on the field as 6 of London Skolars partner Primary Schools took part in the annual PCubed Challenge.
Year on year the tournament has grown in quality and stature, and with 3 debutant schools visiting the venue for the first time it was a very excited group of school children that arrived at Bank Station that morning before the walk down to the HAC.
Drawn into two groups – all teams would enjoy 3 fixtures across the course of the morning. Long-standing partner school Keble Prep from Winchmore Hill were drawn in Group one alongside debutants Belmont Primary and Coldfall. In group 2 the lone debutant was St Michaels School from Highgate, who were drawn alongside tournament veterans Lordship Lane and Rhodes Avenue.
Refereed superbly by London RL referees Tom Logan and James Jaundrell, all teams showed some incredible skill and knowledge of the game to produce some thrilling encounters. An upset in the first game saw Coldfall beat Keble Prep and the debutant school from Muswell Hill were clearly well versed in the TAG form of the game and were in pole position to top the group from then on in. In the opposite group Rhodes Avenue, who had some superb players who caught the eye of both the watching Skolars coaches and Wigan Community staff, stormed to the top of their group, with convincing wins over Lordship Lane and St Michaels.
As the groups finished, the final standings were clear and Coldfall would face Rhodes Avenue in the final game of the tournament, a repeat of the Haringey TAG Championship held at Skolars New River pre-Christmas. That match finished with only one score separating the teams and this one did not disappoint either – Coldfall eventually overcoming their rivals by 5 scores to 3 in front of a large crowd that had started to gather for the main game.
All schools stayed around to form a guard of honour for the main game and cheered loudly as the two first team’s entered the field, then at half-time, they were presented with their medals by the two guest speakers for the day in Martin Offiah and Jamie Peacock, who both spoke so very highly of the behaviour and rugby ability of each school participating.
Skolars Community Officer, Matt Cuss commented on the tournament saying ‘each school was an absolute pleasure to have here today; we saw some wonderful rugby played and the children really enjoyed the day. Once again the opportunity to play at such an iconic venue is one that our Primary schools look forward to each year and we would like to thank our sponsors PCubed for their continued support of the event.
Pictured above are the victorous Coldfall team(in black and white) with defeated finalists Rhodes Avenue and Rugby League legends jamie Peacock and Martin Offiah.
