Trafford MV Youth Team Wins Lancashire Trophy: Match Highlights

Match Report by Mark Owen

It was success at the weekend as Trafford MV’s youth section celebrated their U17’s team winning the Lancashire Trophy defeating a useful Aldwinians team.

The Club looks forward to seeing these young players represent the club at 1st XV level over the coming seasons as they develop into senior players once their school days are over.

Trafford MV Junior Colts put in a relentless, controlled, and at times destructive performance to win the Alan James Trophy 54-10 against Aldwinians at Heaton Moor RUFC.

Trafford started strongly, applying early pressure through the forwards, quickly resulting in a converted try from Harry. This was followed by a rolling maul from a lineout on the Aldwinians 22 which went all the way to the try line for a second score.

Kudos to the forwards coaches! They continued to play in the right parts of the pitch, punishing Aldwinians mistakes and earning a maul peel try for Ryan. Some dogged defence followed until the backs then got in on the act with Joe making a deft break from the 10m line and cutting back to go in under the posts.

A few minutes later a simple opportunity allowed him to dot down a second for TMV’s fifth score, all of which were converted by Dylan. Following a debatable disallowed try for Trafford, a period of “white line fever” followed, and late in the half some sustained pressure from Aldwinians resulted in a neatly-worked wide score by their fullback, concluding a great half of rugby and a scoreline of 35-5.

TMV reset at half-time and started the second half strongly with Ryan completing his hat-trick by getting on the back of another pushover maul, but Aldwinians hit back quickly, pressuring the MV line with a series of “snap” carries, making inexorable yards and eventually squeezing over to score.

TMV’s penalty count started to rise as Aldwinians defended solidly, and they started to over-play a little, until at the 50-minute-mark some slick handling from the backs put Fraser in some space and a jinking, evasive run saw him take the ball on the touchline and end up scoring under the posts. Again, the conversion was good.

Just before the hour mark Rees broke through the middle, stepping the final defender to score, with Jacob converting. In the last ten minutes TMV made more line-breaks against a tiring defence, but a lack of composure meant they were unable to add to the scoreline.

The game finished at TMV 54 – Aldwinians 10 and another trophy to add to the one that this squad won last season.

Whilst Ryan’s hat-trick and Dylan’s outstanding goalkicking (6 from 7) were undoubtedly highlights of the game, this was a superb squad effort throughout, showing the improvement that they have made over the course of this season.

The hard work that the entire squad has put in over the last nine months has paid off and the coaching team are extremely proud of them. Many thanks to the match officials and all of the spectators who made the effort to support the team on the day.

Respect!

Image: Ian Rogers