POCKLINGTON A TOUGH TEST

OTLEY RED”S UNDER 8’s Howard Hickling
Sunday presented a tough away fixture with the under 8’s travelling to Pocklington, a well organized side playing quality rugby who had given us a good well matched home fixture earlier in the season.
On arriving at the ground we were met with the news that a third of the red team were unable to make the journey, which left the remaining players with a tough morning in prospect.
Our host’s were strong in numbers and in order to ensure rugby for all, it was agreed we would field teams of 8 a side with the Otley Reds calling on Emily Comerford to provide cover for those unavailable. Emily answered the call in the best possible way, scoring two quality tries, the first of which starting inside her own half, Emily sliced through the Pocklington defense and over the line. With the bit between her teeth, Emily produced another quality try and completed her excellent work in the first game with two, quality assist’s.
The Reds gave a great show, Freddie Hodnett, Finlay Carroll and Thomas Bentley held strong in defense and pushed Pocklington back at every opportunity, showing great speed and skill in tagging, Seb Smith and Harry Hickling were distributing the ball well and teamed up with our flying wing men, Ben Beale and Iwan Lewis-Jones with both wingers running tries in from deep.
Our work on support play came to fruition with both Freddie Hodnett and Seb Smith hanging off the shoulder of the wingers and cleaning up when required.
Ben Beale attracted much unwanted attention with his usual jinxing runs and soon became public enemy number one but despite a number of visits to the turf, he showed a great fighting spirit and carried on with the job in hand. Iwan Lewis-Jones also attracting unwanted attention gave Pocklington plenty to worry about leaving Finlay Carroll free to carve his way through the centre.
A great first game with Pocklington again showing some fine skills and matching Otley blow for blow, the game eventually decided in the dying seconds with a fine run from Finlay Carroll. Result: Otley 10 - Pocklington 9

Game 2.
Following a short break the Otley Red’s took to the field facing a changed Pocklington side. The Red’s were soon in top gear and raced in 4 tries without reply before the early retirement of Thomas Bentley. With their General missing the Red’s lost focus and Pocklington made the extra man count leveling the scores quickly and then racing into a lead which seemed to put the result beyond doubt. With a mountain to climb the seven Red’s dug deep in the second half showing true grit and determination, the fight back was on and despite being outnumbered on the field the game finished with a flurry, Pocklington holding out for the win, took the spoils 10 – 8.

Our thanks go out to Pocklington, who again gave us a tough test playing some quality rugby and will no doubt continue to do so in the future.

The early start and long journey was well rewarded on Sunday, well done Under 8’s you did the coaches proud.[b][/b]

OTLEY BLUES UNDER 8’s Lee Cobb
Otley Blues held two competent Pocklington sides to draws on Sunday, with score lines of 11-11 and 7-7 respectively.
Both games were end to end affairs - with nothing separating the sides, as testified by the score lines. Some great inter-passing play was seen as the boys continue to develop their footballing skills, along with some lovely support play and opportunism when it presented itself. Great tries for Louis Worrall and Cameron Askey, with Charlie Henry making a couple of decisive runs in both games. Try count of the day goes to Rory Cobb who rattled up a combined total of 10 for one and a half game's efforts and daft mistakes aside, the boys can be proud of their morning's work.
As always - more to do defensively, but the boys held their own and we can look forward with confidence to the next game in the snowy wastes of Horsforth and Yarnbury."