Year 8 Girls Rugby League

[19 Apr 2018]

Yesterday myself and Mr Chambers took the Sirius Academy West Year 8 girls rugby team across to Leeds to take part in the Yorkshire rounds of their rugby league competition. After finishing in the top three schools in Hull alongside Sirius North and Malet Lambert, the girls were keen to impress and get through to the national stages to be held at Wembley later on this year.

Sirius Academy West 3 Malet Lambert 3

First up was the Hull derby against a big strong Malet Lambert side. The Sirius girls started the game well and took a two try lead after some strong running from Talia Martinez and Nicole George to get them over the tryline. But the Malet side got in some good field position and managed to get two tries of their own after their powerful forwards crashed over. It looked like Sirius had won the game when Nicole George went over for her second try, but right on the fulltime whistle Malet equalised.

Sirius Academy West 4 Ryburn 1

Sirius knew they had to win this one to stay in the running for the top two in the league, and they scored on their first set of six. Some great work from Mia Cheesman and Chantelle Dunn sent Leah Pearson crashing through for an early try. Sirius did not stop there, and quick thinking from Mia Cheesman saw her find a gap out wide and go over to double the lead. The defence of the Sirius side was looking strong, with Louise Jessop and Ellie Davidson putting in some strong tackles. Nicole George was next on the scoresheet as she showed her power and speed to make it 3 – 0 before Ryburn went over for  try of their own. Sirius responded immediately to make the final score 4 – 1 in a convincing win.

Sirius Academy West 1 Temple Moor 2

Sirius were on the scoresheet within the first minute of this game, as a short kick off from Chantelle Dunn was picked up by Tegan Purdon who raced over 30 meters for an early score. Both teams were looking solid in defence and looked after the ball well in attack, so it was always going to be a close game. Temple Moor managed to equalise on the 7th minute, and it looked like it was going to end a in draw, but Temple Moor had other ideas and capitalised on a quick play the ball and raced over to seal the game in the final seconds.

This meant that Sirius Academy West would finish 2nd in the group and face the top of the other group, which was National Champions Castleford Academy.

Semi Final: Sirius Academy West 0 Castleford Academy 3

Castleford Academy showed why they were the current National Champions with a convincing 3 – 0 victory. Sirius did not play their best rugby and gifted Castleford a couple of their tries, but there was no doubt about it, Castleford were a very good side and fully deserved to go through to the National Finals.

Whilst the girls did not qualify for nationals, they played extremely well and did very well to get to the semi-final stages. If you see any of the girls around, please congratulate them for their attitude behaviour and performance:-

Chantelle Dunn, Mia Cheesman, Lucy Stewart, Nicole George, Talia Martinez, Louise Smith, Louise Jessop, Leah Pearson, Enola Aitcheson, Jasmine Fielder, Lily Sheperdson, Ellie Davidson, Beth Waters, Tegan Purdon, Jess Wood

Special thanks to Mr Chambers for his support with the team.

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