Call-ups boost for Saints pair

St Anne’s coach Mick Cashin with David Cookson (left) and Danny Kay (right).

Rugby league

OLDHAM St Anne’s hooker Danny Kay is set to round off a personally memorable season in style.

The 24-year-old will set off for Perpignan a week today as part of the all-new National Conference League Eagles representative side, picked from the best talent available within divisions one and two. Games take place against France ‘B’ on Friday, June 19 and Morocco on Sunday, June 21.

Kay, who picked up five man-of-the-match efforts for St Anne’s, is delighted to have received the call following a positive return to action for the club he has grown up playing for.

“I am really made up,” said Kay, who is joined in the squad by Saddleworth Rangers forward Adam Walker.

“It is a great honour to get a place in any representative squad and it is something I am very much looking forward to.

“I had been suffering with an injury and it was holding me back at work so I took a year out of the game (2007-08) before the season just gone.

“My initial thoughts before the start of the campaign were to just get fit again and play in a few second team games.

“But it seems that the break from the sport was just what I needed.”

Another St Anne’s player, talented centre David Cookson, is about to make his international bow.

Having impressed in the County Championship for Lancashire, Cookson finds himself selected in a 22-strong BARLA Great Britain under-23s squad which travels out for the first-ever rugby league tour of the Ukraine on Monday.

Based in the second city of Kharkiv, the squad faces matches against the Ukrainian national side on Wednesday, June 17, and Lokomotiv Moscow on Saturday, June 20, after which a day of sight-seeing in Kiev will be followed by flights to Luton.

The two call-ups for Saints have arrived after a season in which the club was relegated to NCL division two, though Kay is guarded as to the prospects of an immediate promotion.

“To say the club has had two of its players selected for honours shows the character we have got here,” he added.

“It will be a tough division next year so nobody is taking anything for granted.”


WATERHEAD are on the lookout for a new under-16s coach.

The team, which now boasts two England Schools internationals in Daniel Yates and Kyle Mayall — the latter having made a post-season switch from Oldham St Anne's — are the current holders of the Oldham Chronicle Cup and gained promotion to the North-West Counties premier division as under-15s last season.

Register your interest by contacting youth chairman Andy Dean by email at andydeano@yahoo.co.uk or on 07764183129. The deadline for all applicants is Friday, June 19, at 5pm.

There are still team places available for Waterhead’s golf day on Friday, June 26, at Crompton and Royton. To enter, call Mick Bradshaw on 07894122315.