West Bank Bears beaten

12:48pm Thursday 27th November 2008

North West Counties Cup Quarter Final match report: Rylands Sharks u14 38 West Bank Bears u14 10 RYLANDS moved into the semi-finals stage of the North West Counties Cup defeating a very spirited West Bank side.

Rylands opened the scoring early on, when a mix up from the kick off enabled one of the huge Rylands props to crash over under the sticks, the conversion made it 6-0.

Another close range power play from Rylands sent them in after five minutes, the try was converted, 12-0.

West Bank then started to get back into the game with some great tackling causing Rylands errors.

From a scrum on West Banks 10metre line, Matty Fozard through a perfectly timed pass to Danny Stapleton who pushed aside the winger and centre and ran the length of the pitch, evading the full-back with pace, power and determination.

12-4 to Rylands, game on.

West Banks tackling was now superb with Ryan McCann, Mike Donoghue, Jack White, Danny Stapleton, Elliott Condron and Matty Fozard tackling as though their lives depended on it, this caused Rylands to make mistakes.

The West Bank props Elliott Condron, Dean Morgan and Adam Murphy were driving the ball upfield with lots of passion, ably backed by Kyle Smith and Andy McCann.

The Bears wingers – Jamie Oliver, Jake Bate and Joe Clark tackled their hearts out against a much physically bigger Warrington side.

Full back Ryan Bamford had another solid game as did scrum half Alex Millington.

A couple of dubious refereeing decisions gave Rylands two more converted tries to make it 24-4 to the home side at half-time.

The start of the second half brought with it terrible playing conditions, for five minutes the players had to endure a mini monsoon, with wind and hailstone blowing wildly around the pitch.

Rylands scored two more unconverted tries to stretch the lead to 32-4.

Once again West Bank never gave in, the forwards forced the ball upfield with Jack White and Alex Millington orchestrating the move, suddenly from nowhere Danny Stapleton made a run from the right to the left wing taking the ball at pace and the cutting through three would-be tacklers to score a try that the team deserved for all the effort put in, Matty Fozard added the conversion, 32-10 to Rylands.

Rylands scored a late converted try to make the final score 38-10 and go into the hat for the semi-final draw.

West Bank can take great heart from this performance against a team who are unbeaten for the last two seasons, Rylands knew they had to be at their best to win today.