Under-12s step up to the plate

RUGBY: SADDLEWORTH Rangers under-12s emerged victorious on North-West Counties finals day on the coast at Fylde RUFC near Blackpool.

The coaching team of Andy Holmes and Dominic Wall — who have accepted occasional advice from England RU defence coach Mike Ford — watched proudly as their charges defeated Woolston Rovers 14-10 to lift the development plate.

Harry Aaronson ran home a pair of tries before Jacob Ford produced a superb pass for Tom Brisk to race home from 40 metres out.

The second half went the way of Woolston, who closed in thanks to a pair of tries and a conversion, but Rangers held on well.

Awesome defending by Ford and the Adams twins and excellent performances courtesy of Sam Ireland, Fin Wall and Archie Taylor also helped Rangers earn an impressive victory.

Newcomers Reece Travis, Harry Smith and Ali Hassan and stalwarts Nathan Knowles and Dan Holmes all made purposeful and powerful runs deep into the Woolston half throughout the match and they all tackled to good effect.


OLDHAM St Anne's under-eights registered successive victories after seeing off Shevington Sharks by eight tries to seven and St Cuthbert's by three tries to one.

Brandon Turner picked up the boy-of-the-match award with a hat-trick against Shevington, with the other tries coming from Daniel Nixon (two), Sam Thackeray (two) and James Hall.

In the clash with St Cuthbert's, all of the Saints tries arrived through Thackeray (three), who gained the boy-of-the-match award.


NEWTON Storm under-11s were blown away by a near-perfect effort from visitors Oldham St Anne's, who came out on top thanks to tries from Alex France (two), Cameron Molloy (two), Jamie Ashton, Regan Croft, Callum Travis, Oliver Depetrillo and Haider Khan.

Brandon Sanderson worked hard for St Anne's to take the top tackler award, Jamie Ashton was boy-of-the-match and Thomas Taylor got the 'magic moment' trophy for a try-saving tackle.


FIVE different players scored tries as Saddleworth Rangers under-nines won by seven scores to one away at West Bank Bears.

Bradley Jinks and man-of-the-match Ben Forster claimed a pair each, Andrew Goodwin got the 'most improved' trophy for his strong running and contribution in defence and Adam Howarth was top tackler.