This weekend at New River saw the sun shine and a large contingent of our Skolars’ Minis and Juniors take to the field.
Pitches were set up all across the Perth Road fiel, as our U7s and U9s continued to increase their Rugby League experience under the watchful of coaches Dave Roberts and Huw Bevan, our youngest Skolars are improving each week and certainly had a lot of fun, as the picture shows. Head Coach Dave has introduced weekly awards into his sessions and these are awarded to the 3 players who demonstrate Discipline, Work Rate and Team-work. This week’s winners were Alys, Sacha and Marquis, who are pictured with their awards above.
Paul Quill’s U11s took the opportunity of a week off from festival action to entertain Invicta Panthers. Games like these help break up training weeks and allow the youngsters to get as much game time as possible during the season. Invicta proved worthy opposition over the course of the 2 games that were played and Paul extends a large thank you to the parents and children for travelling up to North London.
On the main field, there was a large watching crowd for the U13s fixture against arguably the strongest team in the competition Invicta Panthers. Hopes were high for the boys from North London given the way which they performed last week in their 92-0 win at Medway Dragons. However the Panthers included in their ranks some incredibly large lads and played with shape that belied their tender years.
This size combined with Rugby League ability was too much for the inexperienced Skolars boys and they succumbed to a heavy 62-0 defeat. However every performance is a learning curve for many of these young lads, and as the team begins to gel and improve week on week they is no doubt that they will surprise some sides if they make the playoffs.
Next up on the main pitch were Fred Pentecost’s U15s. Still smarting from a heartbreaking golden point defeat by Elmbridge Eagles in the London Junior League Cup Final last weekend, the U15s got back on track by dispatching Eastern Rhinos 68-18 to remain unbeaten in their league campaign.
The determination was there from the off for the lads in red black and green and they exploded into action crossing for 3 unanswered tries early on to race into a 18-0 lead. However credit to Eastern Rhinos, they galvanized themselves and well lead by their outstanding scrum half Faysal Olabooye managed to claw some scores back to end the half 18-12.
The second period began under the midday heat and it was the Skolars who coped better in the hot conditions, playing expansive and controlled rugby league. The right edge for the Skolars was devastating, with Nicky Freeman, Joel Bateson and Ben Woodward causing the Rhinos lots of problems. Captain Alex Pentecost led well from the front once again, but the stars of the show were winger Andrew Tilley who crossed for an incredible 4 tries and kicked 8 goals, taking his personal contribution to 32 points for the day, and Skolars exciting fullback Jordan Roden.
Jordan, not for the first time this season scored a spectacular individual try, racing the length of the field, outpacing a good cover defence from the Rhinos to crash over under the posts, which left the watching crowd in awe at the talent of this individual. The great thing about Pentecost’s side is that even though they have a wide range of exciting individual talent in their side, they also have a fantastic work ethic and team ethos and once again named a squad of 25 players, lending the weakened opposition 8 players over the course of the 2 halves.
