On a wet Thursday evening Burnside’s U13 rugby squad travelled across the city to play Kenton School’s U13/14 rugby team.
Despite not playing together since July, Burnside began the match with quiet confidence having had plenty of opportunity to refine their passing and contact skills in PE lessons over the previous 5 weeks. However a better drilled Kenton team quickly stole possession from Burnside through counter rucking and scored a break away try in the right corner after 3 minutes. 5-0.
Straight from the resulting kick off, Burnside attacked deep into Kenton’s half with some great running from Cobi Lewis who despite his smaller stature, was able to find gaps and offload in the tackle superbly to supporting team mate Kieran Liddle who beat two defenders to score. 5-5
The next 10 minutes were a poor spell for Burnside, conceding three quick tries. Kenton were playing well, showing far better support play- getting to the breakdown more quickly and turning over possession. 20-5.
Burnside regrouped and the team set themselves two targets; improved tackle technique- focusing on forming the ‘ring of steel’ and running more directly when in possession. This refocusing had the desired effect as Burnside played their best rugby of the match with the score being brought back to 30-25 with just under 5 minutes to play.
Sadly the fight back ended there with Kenton scoring a further 2 tries to put the game out of sight. In almost the last play of the game Kieran Liddle scored the final try of the game bringing his personal tally to four.
Final score Kenton 40-30 Burnside
The match was played in excellent spirit throughout and at the end of the game players smiled and shook hands. Despite being bruised, battered, cold and soaking wet both teams were thoroughly looking forward to a rematch later in the term.
There were several candidates for Man of the Match; Captain Nathan Gray led his team well on debut, Matthew Robinson made some excellent carries before injury overcame him and Jay Jabari ran so hard he literally had opposition players bouncing off him.
In the end though 2 ‘Men of the Match’ were selected; Kieran Liddle for his superb running and try scoring feats and Sonny Ho for his fearless and technically good tackling, bringing down much bigger opponents with ease.
Nathan Gray (c)
Kieran Liddle
Alfie Freeth
Jay Jabari
Daniel Johnson
Nathan Emson
Matthew Robinson
Cobi Lewis
Henry Suter
Dillan Hood
Conor Purcell
Alex Baxter
Jack Newton
Sonny Ho
Try scorers: K Liddle (4), M Robinson, J Jabari
Next tournament is Thursday 2nd November @ Wallsend RFC 3.30-6pm
