Marvell College 18 Sirius Academy North 16
Marvell College 18 Sirius Academy North 16
The Sirius Academy North Year 7 Boys travelled across to Andrew Marvell in the Hull Schools Trophy Semi Final. Unfortunately, they were without scoring machine Ashdon Robertson due to illness and also absent was both second rowers Charlie Gowans and Dylan Ferguson. This meant that the Sirius side were light in the forwards and only travelled with 12 players.
The game started well for Sirius with a superb starting set of six, the resulting kick on the last from Josh Welham caused the Marvell side to knock on. This handed Sirius a great opportunity to go over for an early score as they shifted the ball to the right-hand side to find Isaac Firth who stepped his way over, the conversion was successful from out wide from Josh Welham to make it 6 – 0. Sirius had another opportunity to go over and extend the lead, but a scoot from Jenson Kilic near their try line saw him get a bang to the head in the tackle and knock on, unfortunately Jenson had to leave the field of play, leaving Sirius with only 11 players to see out the game. Andrew Marvell responded well to having a 2-player advantage and got a try back of their own to make it 6 – 4. But the character and desire of the Sirius side was fantastic as they went over out wide, once again it was the impressive Isaac Firth who showed a clean pair of heels and rounded the Marvell defence, try was converted 10 – 4. Just before the break Marvell barged their way over to make it 10 – 8 at halftime in favour of Sirius.
The second half didn’t start well for Sirius as a couple of errors gave Marvell good field position, and once again they crashed over from close range 10 – 14 to Marvell. Sirius tried everything to get back in the game as Mason Beet, Josh Welham and Dominic Arnold were working overtime in attack. Unfortunately, the kick on the last from Sirius took a nasty bounce and the Marvell player picked the ball up and ran over 90 meters to score in the corner, 10 – 18. Sirius started to share the work and bring in players like Leon Morfitt and Henlee Greig who took the ball in well to get within 10 meters of the Marvell tryline. Unfortunately, Sirius went down to 10 players as a high tackle on Dominic Arnold saw him have to leave the field. From the resulting penalty up stepped Josh Welham, who looked to pass out wide but threw a dummy and stepped inside to go in under the sticks with only 1 minute on the clock with the score at 18 – 16 to Marvell. Sirius knew they had to score from the set of six after receiving the ball from the kick off, and it looked like they had on the second play as Isaac Firth rounded the defence and ran down the wing over 60 meters, he just needed to put the ball down in the corner, but he went to score try and score under the sticks and unfortunately was deemed to have knocked as the player came in to tackle him. Game over and heartbreak for the Year 7 Boys as they just missed out on the final.
Considering the team went down to ten players, they never stopped believing in themselves to go on and win the game and worked so hard as a team to try and do this, even though they were 8 points down with five minutes to go the determination and hard work was evident. The rugby they players was the best I have seen from them, and I am extremely proud of the effort, desire and resilience they showed. This team now look forward to the Yorkshire Plate 2nd Round when they take on Salendine Nook (Huddersfield) at home on Tuesday 21st March. Hopefully they can get a few more players back and have a really good go at getting to the ¼ Final of the competition.
Please congratulate the squad on their performance, teamwork and determination:-
Michael Alcock, Kieran Bootyman, Charlie Rae, Leon Morfitt, Riley Sutton, Isaac Firth, Josh Welham, Jenson Kilic, Mason Beet, Alfie Dobson, Henlee Greig and Dominic Arnold.
Players of the match went to Isaac Firth and Josh Welham, as they both took the line on well in attack from the acting half back positions, causing Marvell all sorts of problems, as well as being solid in defence.
Special thanks to Miss Mills for her continued support with the boy’s rugby.
