Sport

Under 15s Boys Touch Report

Last week the under 15s boys travelled to Orange for the Western SSA Gala Day, we were placed in the pool of death, it was going to be a tough day yet the boys were there for the fight.

We made a great start in our first game against Bathurst High, the first of the big sides we had in our sights for the day. We started well against them, defending well and taking our chances when they arose. The game was intense and saw us shoot to a 5-2 lead after 15 minutes. This got Bathurst into gear, who underestimated us and saw them claw back to level with us at 5 all. To the boy's credit, they stayed calm and Josh K scored a great try to beat them 6-5. A highlight also from this game was a hattrick from Josh K.

This set us up with some confidence and some great lessons for our year 7 boys who realised they had a big day ahead of them and that the pressure was on to do their jobs. We discussed between games that we needed to tactically work a bit smarter and complete our sets as we worked hard on at school in the lead-up.

Our second game was against Orange High, a school of 1200 students, to put it in perspective, they had 300 boys to choose their squad from, we had 20. This was a big game. They were the defending Western champions and full of confidence after their Opens took out the trophy last week. Our team stepped up for this game, Joe had a huge game with 4 tries. We went out to a 3 nil lead then as Orange pegged a couple back we kept edging ahead. Fatigue set in but the boys hung on to go to a 6-5 lead with 3 to go. Orange was on our tails, then came a massive play where Jacob A was man-handled as he was trying to make a touch and went flying 5 metres back. We won a penalty for his lack of weight and stayed calm and went down for a great try by Josh D, which sealed the win 7-5. This win ultimately knocked Orange out of the day.

Our next game was against Cowra High, we settled well into this game with some champagne touch and razzle-dazzle. We pumped them 9-1 to win our pool match and send us into the Semi-finals. A huge achievement in itself for our team that we were very proud of.

The semi was against Dubbo College, a huge school and again with a lot of students to pick from. It was a tough game. There were no tries for the first 10 minutes as both teams defended very well and just couldn't quite finish off opportunities. We were, unfortunately, the first to break letting in a length of the field try. We fought hard till the end but our legs just run out of puff and went down 1-3 in a proud effort.

It was a great day, we went into the day after most of us played in the Opens day knowing we could give it a nudge and we delivered some great results.

The top try-scorers of the day were Logan and Joe with 7 tries each. Josh D had an impressive day again, the kid has a heart the size of Phar Lap.

We finished the day 3rd out of 14 schools. It was an awesome effort that we are very proud of. 

Thanks to Mr Corcoran for coaching us. We are very grateful for the opportunity to compete on the day. Also a shout out to Abbie and Imogen, who we forgot to mention last week, who helped ref at the opens day. They did a great job! 

As reported by the Team