Year 8 Girls draw in Yorkshire RL Final
Sirius Academy 36 St John Fisher 36
Sirius Academy Year 8 Girls took on St John Fisher in the Yorkshire RL Cup Final and the game ended up in a 36 – 36 draw, with both teams struggling in defence but looking good in attack. The game started well for Sirius as Molly Bigby went on a good solo run and outpaced the defence to go over for the opening try, which Kayleigh Waller converted. St John Fisher got one back shortly after when the Sirius marker was deemed offside. And on their resulting set of six on the Sirius line they crashed over. Kayleigh Waller saw a gap in the defence and went over to double the lead, Mia Duke then went over with a fantastic try from acting half back, showing real skill and speed to go over the tryline. The Sirius team were putting in some good hits in defence, with Saffron Jones and Amelia Longden leading the way, but St John Fisher would not give up and got another try back. Victoria Godwin showed her speed and strength with a couple of outstanding individual tries to extend the lead. Again the referee gave a couple of back to back penalties in favour of St John Fisher, and again they capitalised and crashed over. They got another one back just before the halftime whistle, again from close range, making the halftime score 30 – 22 in favour of Sirius.
The second half started pretty much the same, with a fine individual try from Molly Bigby to go over the corner. But again, credit to St John Fisher, they sent up their big girls in attack and they caused the Sirius defence all sorts of problems. Danielle Fulton and Jess Delph was introduced and worked hard in defence, but the amount of penalties conceded and silly errors on the first tackle by the Sirius girls made life hard for them as they were their own worst enemy, inviting pressure on their own line and St John Fisher took their chances, scoring two more tries. Sirius thought they had scored in the last five minutes to seal the victory, with a fine draw and pass from Mia Duke to Ellie Cone, but the referee called it back for a forward pass. With the score at 36 – 32 it was all to play for and all Sirius needed to do was keep the ball, but again the lost it early on in the tackle count twice in quick succession, and in the dying seconds St John Fisher went over for the equiliser, but luckily for Sirius they could not slot over the conversion. The score remained 36 – 36, which meant that the trophy would be shared by both teams.
Player of the match went to Molly Bigby, who was solid in defence and dangerous in attack.
Please congratulate the girls, in what was a very evenly matched game. The girls know that their own errors cost them dearly and will be looking to improve on this, as well as their defence when they take part in the National RU Final at Twickenham on Saturday.
Squad: Kayleigh Waller, Rio Cambell, Amelia Longden, Emily Andrew, Jamie Watson, Ellie Cone, Danielle Fulton, Saffron Jones, Mia Duke, Victoria Godwin, Jess Delph, Georgia Wardell, Molly Bigby, Laura Roper.
A big thank you to Natasha Pearson and Gemma Barton for their support with the team.
