2017 Winning Streak for U12’s!
The Under 12’s had their first game of the New Year versus Ponteland on Sunday the 8th of January and made an impressive start to 2017.
Ponteland made the journey across from the North East and arrived at Carlisle in plenty time, all smartly dressed in their white shirts and club ties. Once changed the Ponteland lads took to the field and started to go through their warm up routine together, looking extremely impressive. At this point the Carlisle lads were just arriving half asleep and bleary eyed after a hard night on the X-box. It was left to the coaches to wake them up and bring them back into the real world for the match…no easy task.
Before the kick off captain Myles Kasiera gave the Carlisle lads some inspirational words (too agricultural to repeat here) and the Carlisle team was finally fired up and ready to go.
Ponteland kicked off and the ball was well fielded by Carlisle who immediately went through 4 or 5 phases of ball retention taking play all the way back toward the Ponteland try line. Captain Myles Kasiera saw his opportunity, took the ball from the back of a maul and charged over the line from 10 yards out to score the first try.
During the next few phases of play the difference between the 2 teams became very evident. Ponteland with some really good individual broken field runners and the Carlisle forwards being much stronger around the breakdown, being able to retain the ball through multiple phases and providing a huge amount of quality ball for their backs to use through their superior rucking and counter-rucking. A great effort by Myles Kasiera, Jacob Harris, Will Garson, Josh Blain and Josh Hope.
The score at half time of Carlisle 15 - Ponteland 5 was a fair reflection of the game so far.
Carlisle started the second half very strongly and Ponteland continued to be starved of the ball by the Carlisle forwards rucking and ferocious counter-rucking. Stand-off, Danny Gorman, used the ball particularly well in the second half and set up a number of tries where the backs passed it brilliantly from one side of the pitch to the other to score some lovely team tries.
Additionally, Carlisle’s backs defence in the second half left Ponteland without a try with Joe Edmondson making one particular brilliant try saving tackle.
The final score of Carlisle 45 – Ponteland 5 probably flattered Carlisle slightly and Ponteland were looking a little worn out in the last 5 minutes by the more powerful Carlisle team.
Overall a great winning start to 2017 for Carlisle U12’s but more importantly both teams really enjoyed the match and the break from the virtual world.