Sirius Girls Yorkshire Rugby Union Champions and are Off to Twickenham
The under 15’s continued their success in rugby union at Wetherby yesterday in the Yorkshire finals to bag themselves a place at Twickenham to represent Yorkshire and the school to be the National Rugby union champions.
The girls had been working hard and knew that they would have to beat some tough competition to do well this year. Most of the girls were part of the U13 winning team at Twickenham last year and knew there would be other school’s ready to challenge them for the title. The girls were placed into a tough group with Settle College and Headlands being their main competition. This was also the team’s first opportunity to play with 5 player scrums , line outs and being able to hand-off.
Sirius Academy 5 Kings school 2
Sirius Academy started the game very well, the showed they were a strong team who were ready to fight for their position in the final. The girls were organised and quickly turned the ball over for Kayleigh Waller to run the ball over for an early try showing her pace and strength. With a brilliant ball from Dani Fulton, Jorden Shakespeare managed to see off 3 Kings School girls to make the score 2-0 within the first 3 minutes of the game. The girls continued to show their skill with a team effort of successful rucking for Mia Duke to score the next try. The girls let the early tries get to them and switched off which allowed Kings School to score 2 tries past the Sirius girls. The girls then knew they needed to up their game and within the last 5 minutes Carla Manuel and Emily Andrew went over to make it 5-2.
Sirius Academy 2 St John Fisher 0
The girls were pumped and ready to continue their success. Straight after their first game they were up against a large and strong St John Fisher school. The girls started the game well with an excellent try from Amelia Longden who watched the game and looked for spaces in the defensive line. The game was quite evenly matched with both school’s tirelessly trying to work their way over the line. St John Fisher used their bigger and stronger girls to break through the Sirius defence to make it 1-1. Again the girl knew what they had to do and with some strong try saving tackles from Jorden, Paige Fetcher and Jamie Watson they had turned over the ball and with team work and some skilful passing the ball was passed to Mia who scored, outrunning the St John Fisher team.
Sirius 5 Headland 1
The girls went into this game knowing they were only 2 matches away from making it to the finals so the team morale was high. The attacking play was a strength in the game with some great passing between Emily savage, Emily Andrew and Demi Leake keeping the ball alive. Molly Bigby and Dani Fulton were vocal and were looking for spaces in the defensive line with Saffron Jones and Shauna Jones making some convincing runs, setting Molly up for the first try of the match. From then on Sirius dominated the game, with Mia, Kayleigh (2) and Shauna going over before the final whistle.
Sirius 1 Settle 1
This was the girl’s hardest game of the tournament with both teams ready to fight for their place to the final. Both teams knew the winner of this would go on to play the winner of pool B. the game was tense and evenly matched with Settle scoring an early try within the first 4 minutes. The Sirius girls were not ready to hand over the title and worked tirelessly with Ellie Cone and Rio Campbell making some great runs down the wing. The Sirius team just couldn’t score and began to get frustrated as they knew their place in the final was slipping away from then. Kayleigh Waller went in to make a strong tackle and fell on her jaw which saw her taken off and taken to hospital with a possible dislocated Jaw. This sent a bit of panic through the team but they realised they had 2 minutes to get themselves back into the game. The girls worked fantastically as a team attacking the Settle defensive line and keeping the ball safe. 1 minute before the final whistle Mia went over to make the game 1-1.
After the longest 5 minute wait while the officials worked out the try difference between Sirius and Settle the girls found out they were through to the final. One match away from Twickenham.
Sirius 2 Wolfreton 1
By the last match the Sirius team were flagging. The team had lost Kayleigh, and Rio and Emily Savage had picked up injuries so had to sit out. The girl’s knew this was going to be the toughest matched they had ever played. The Wolfreton team had been beaten by Sirius twice in this competition and were more than ready to fight for their place. The teams were evenly matched, the Sirius girls put 100% into every tackle and were working well as a team, despite this the Wolfreton captain found a gap in the Sirius defensive line and despite Jorden and Amelia trying to hold up the try, Wolfreton were leading. The passion the girls put into the next 8 minutes was admirable, the team work and pure determination was obvious and due to this the girls worked their way up the pitch with Mia scoring the equalising try. The game continued to be tense and at full time the score was 1-1. The girls played extra time and knew that the next try would see their team go through. The Sirius team put pressure on the Wolfreton girls who began to make silly mistakes. The girls got a penalty 2 meters from the try line. Shauna made an excellent pass to Saffron who went over to score the winning try.
The girls were going to Twickenham for the second year running!!!!!
Massive well done to the team: Kayleigh Waller, Rio Campbell, Ameila Longden, Emily Andrew, Jamie Watson, Shauna Jones, Ellie Cone, Danielle Fulton, Mia Duke, Saffron Jones, Paige Fletcher, Emily Savage, Molly Bigby, Jorden Shakespeare, Demi Leake and Carla Manuel.
Thanks to Rachel Gay for her help with the team.
