The start of the Winter Pennine season in Division two saw Shaw Cross head to the hills of Halifax to take on King Cross Park on what was a very wet afternoon.

It was a new look Shaw Cross team with 4 open age debutants (Thomas Wilby, Sean Carty, Jack Richardson & Adam Moore) and one 2nd debut (Dan Nicholson) being made, and no fewer than 6 of the lads were stepping up from the U18’s to put on a shirt.

Shaw Cross started the better team, they dominated in both attack and defence. Debutant Thomas Wilby had a huge impact in the game with some strong carries and being a nuisance in defence with some solid tackles. After the completion of back to back sets the lads dominated the field possession and got a good lead through tries from Brad Baines and Owen Lumb with Alex Whittaker making one successful conversation attempt.

Before the half time break, King Cross managed to get their noses in front as they had their purple patch of the game after a few Shaw Cross errors and the lads being unable to complete a full set.

They regrouped at half time and took the game to King Cross from the off, with some solid defence in the middle they managed to keep the opponents scoreless in the second half and tries from Jack Richardson & Luke Hudson sealed the win.

Coach Andrew Tillotson was full of praise for the full team.

“I couldn’t ask for a better start to the season, the lads were solid and gave their all! We have only had a couple of training sessions and we have mainly worked on attack and being smart with the ball. In my opinion it was our defence that won us the game today, it was brilliant!”

“We were led by Joel Russell and Harrison Sutcliffe superbly in the middle of the field, some of the shots Joel put on really turned the game for us and put a good buzz within the lads.”

“I could list everyone that played today and make a lot of positive comments, the effort was top notch and to win with so many young lads and debutants is fantastic, all the debutants stepped up and it looked like we were a team that had been together for a full season, not 3 weeks!”

“I’m really chuffed for young Robbo (Robson Sutcliffe) who got the Man of The Match, he’s a real live wire player and caused them a lot of problems. He’s been a quiet lad in training and I felt like he might be in at the deep end a little by starting your open age career thrown in at Stand Off but he was top class. As was big Adam Moore, he’s huge and made some great carries, he even changed his shift at work to make himself available for the game and that’s the type of commitment that deserves a win!”

“We’ve no game for two weeks now which will allow us to get through a lot in training and I believe we have around another 10 to 15 lads to come back, that will all be wanting to be in contention for selection for the next game so it’s exciting times.”