Liverpool Collegiate U13 24-17 Eccles U13

A game of two halves…

Today saw the last game of the group stages of the Lancashire Cup, which is appropriately sponsored by Blacktsicks Cheese. Possibly the only cheese sponsored sporting tournament in existence.
The winners today would go into the plate competition (stilton, cheddar, brie, chutney and some grapes) whilst the losers would have to make do with progressing to the bowl competition (some Cheesestrings , microwaved). So it was all to play for…

On arrival, however, it was clear that Eccles barely had enough players for a game of football let alone rugby so the game was declared a home walkover.
As against Manchester we loaned a number of players to allow a full friendly to take place.

In the first half we sent some of our stronger players to supplement Eccles and it worked in their favour. Whilst we had a reasonable amount of possession we didn’t score and at the other end Eccles scored 3 tries. The pick of these was from Fintan, who ran onto a long kick and scored in the corner.

17-0 down at half time left us a lot to do and we don’t have a great track record of coming back from behind. However, we regrouped at half time and the second period was a different story. The initial breakthrough came from a trademark drive from Boo, which fell just short but was finished off by Ruari.
A further try from Jack still left us 7 points behind with only 5 minutes left.
The game had become quite fragmented, with long delays for scrums and lineouts and it looked like we might fall short. However, Ruari spotted a gap on the blind side at a ruck and ran unchallenged to score under the posts. Jack added the extras to level the scores at 17 all with only a couple of minutes left.

Sensing victory, we through everything into an attack on the Eccles’ line. A series of looped passes created the necessary overlap for Harrison to score his second try of the season. Fintan added the conversion to leave the final score 24-17.

This was our third straight cup victory and the progress is there for all to see. We will have a tough away quarter final in the next round but on our day we can beat just about any team. Thankfully Sefton aren’t in our competition…

Squad

Dan C, Dan H, Toby, Harrison, Shaun, Olly, Luke, Sonny, Finbar, Dan d, anton, Boris, Big Tom, Ruari, jack L, Jack H, Fintan, Matthew, Matty, Calum

Scorers

Ruari 2 tries, Jack try and conversion, Harrison try, Fintan conversion