Lymm Youth Rugby

On Saturday May 29th, 2010, Nick Abendandon (Bath & England RU International) crowned Lymm RFC Under 10s National Champions.

With all national finals taking place at Twickenham RFU HQ, as a curtain raiser to Premiership Grand Final day, Lymm defeated Middlesex Champion team, Teddington in the semi final 2T.0 and then Yorkshire’s Champion team, Sandal 1T.0 in the final in a battle of the roses clash.

At this level of competition, you expect tight games against well organised and drilled teams. This was certainly the case but the boys managed to produce moments of quality in their play that made the difference to the score lines. 

In being crowned National Champions the boys had already defeated local rivals Macclesfield, Topsham (Devon Champions), Northampton Old Scouts (Northamptonshire Champs) and Upminster (Essex Champions) at the Nottingham Qualification Festival.

Twickenham Finals Day – Results

SF – Lymm v Teddington        2T.0     WON

F – Lymm v Sandal                 1T.0     WON

In winning, the National title, the boys have not conceded a single try in the competition - the only team in any age grade from U9-14 to do so. Commitment to defending is always important part of this team but to achieve this at a National level against the best teams in the country is a fantastic achievement and says everything about this team. Nick Abendandon mentioned our “strong defensive hits” and “attitude pre game”

The Twickenham experience brings an end to the 2009-10 season, where the boys maintained an unbeaten record. Highlights being winning the Cheshire Mini Cup, Lancashire Festival, Manchester Festival along with our successes in Yorkshire, East & West Midlands & Wales. All the superlatives that have been rained upon this team over the season barely does them justice. They are the true “non pareils” 

LYMM RFC UNDER 10 SQUAD - Rhys Lilly (Capt), Jack Porteous, James Sherlock, Joe Murphy, Max Ure, George Monaghan, Will Caldwell, George Hughes, Neil Llewellyn, Luke Diamond & Will Buckley

Another great season drew to a close with a brilliant tour to Gloucester.

On Saturday the be-hatted Lymm army arrived at Chosen Hill in unexpected sunshine, Ian Johnstone’s surreal chicken titfer winning the hat contest. That’s the last thing we did win! We were rubbish – losing the rugby, boys’ tug of war, mens’ tug of war – we couldn’t even hammer a nail into a tree stump (old Gloucester game apparently!). But what a great time we had. The Chosen Hill lads were an excellent team who played a different game to what we are used to at home. And a very good game it was. Lymm went 4 tries behind before remembering what they did and pulling 3 tries back. But it wasn’t enough to stop Chosen Hill running out worthy winners. We were then looked after royally by a splendid rugby club. I would tell you about the evening’s escapades but I can’t remember much about them.

By Sunday both the hats and the weather had taken a turn for the worse. And the army when they arrived at Silhillians looked more like the crowd in the Big market, Newcastle at 3am on a Saturday morning. That is those who found it on time instead of wandering aimlessly around Birmingham all morning. The boys were a bit strong for the Silhillian lads who put in a brave performance. With hindsight they should’ve played the Lymm dads – they would have won easily.

Yet again the Silhillians hosted us brilliantly, their champion thrashing ours at the Mars Bar/Coke challenge. They also arranged for their entire mini-section to attack us with water guns – thanks lads!

So, a perfect end to a great season. Thanks to our hosts, the very patient Holiday Inn, Gloucester (now being refurbished), everyone involved in the tour organisation(!) all the parents and most of all a smashing group of lads.

A well contested and good natured game was settled by three Lymm tries in the second half. 

Scorers Tries – Pilkington, Preston, Pownall, McMaster.  Conversions – Warton 3

Cheshire Cup Final: Stockport 0 v 31 Lymm

Lymm saved their best performance of the season for the biggest match of the season. They demonstrated, yet again, they can move up a gear for a knock-out match – and another still for a final.

And they were up against a fine team who were worthy finalists, having beaten both semi-finalists, the plate winners and the Lancashire cup winners during the season.

But Lymm put on a superb display. Calm, disciplined and focussed on their match tactics from the first minute. Don’t be deceived by the comfortable-looking score – it was far from it. In fact Stockport had at least as much territory and possession as Lymm – if not more. The difference was that Lymm’s defence was magnificent and they knew how to finish when there was a glimpse of an opening. Time and time again Stockport’s big, quick strike runners tore at Lymm. Time and time again they were knocked down before the gain line. After soaking up some early pressure Lymm started to win some ball and play some rugby. This led to 2 fine early tries from captain Mark Dixon. Then, just before half-time came the try of the match, if not the season. A lot of the credit for this try should go to coach Johnstone who had worked tirelessly with the boys on keeping the ball alive before contact. I’m sure this try went through all 15 sets of hands (possibly an exaggeration!) forwards offloading, backs following their passes for a move that swept the length and width of the pitch before wing Liam Eakins touched down in the corner. Just before half time Lymm went down to 14 men with their first-ever sin-binning! To be fair to the ref he had warned the Lymm captain about a series of offside offences and Alex Nolan took the card for the team when he went off his feet at the next ruck. No complaints about that, but keeping him off for 14 mins in a 50 min match seemed a bit harsh! Half-time 17-0 to Lymm.

The second half was a repeat of the first. No dropped heads from Stockport who continued to batter at Lymm, who in turn tackled everything that wasn’t green and white. Luke Richards was the next to get his name in on the score-sheet with a trademark break through the centre to split the defence. And it wouldn’t be a cup-final if Alex Mansfield-Hickman didn’t score! Despite being subbed at half-time, he came back on at full-back to outpace the Stockport defence in a kick chase to score a fine try. Tim Downes, Alex Mitchell and Mark Dixon also landed conversions.

Thanks to Wirral RFC for their excellent organisation, the ref and Stockport – a proud bunch of lads who gave us a hell of a game.

All 22 of the Lymm squad played and made a full contribution to this match:  The men of the match were: Bellerby K, Bellerby M,  Byrne, Diamond J, Dickinson, Dixon, Downes, Eakins, Harris, Johnstone,  Loughridge, Makin, Mansfield-Hickman, McCormack,  McGrail,  Mitchell, Nolan,  Plumb, Richards, Walkington, Warburton-Thomas, Wardner.

A rare defeat for Lymm at Crouchley Lane. But no doubt it was a deserved win for Macclesfield and the score was an accurate reflection of the game. Macc were better in every aspect of play.

As well as Macc putting in an excellent performance, Lymm’s was lacklustre. Whether it was the thought of two imminent cup finals in 5 days or just an off day, but Lymm just didn’t match Macc’s desire. In fact the tone was set in the first 3 minutes when Macc scored despite Lymm having two opportunities to clear. The one exception was Joe McGrail, who had an excellent game and played like it mattered.

The B team match, however, was an excellent pick-me-up, the Lymm development team deservedly beating one of the County’s best B team squads. Lymm played the better rugby throughout, only some poor defending keeping the Macclesfield team interested. It was great to see newcomers like Will Diamond beginning to show glimpses of his potential and George Rustage a right handful at this level. Many of these players are knocking very hard at the A team door. Probably the games best moment was the return of Will Leach for the last 10 minutes after his injury-ravaged season.

Lymm had 12 B team players, so had no choice but to rotate the other 3 positions with lads who had already played 50 minutes hard rugby.  Commentators need to learn to accept an occasional defeat with dignity or if they find that impossible should consider that the round ball game might suit them better.

April 18th.

Lymm took the honours in this excellent game of rugby between two very strong squads.

Trentham opened the scoring , but Lymm responded brightly with a Tim Young charge . Ben Sherlock came off the bench to add five more points with an equally strong effort. Lymm leading 10 v 7 at the interval.

The second half saw both sides pressurise the other  with strong tackling and running to the fore. A penalty in front of the posts saw the home side equalise before capitalising on a loosely retrieved kick to take a 17 v 10 lead. However Lymm responded very strongly with a further try from Sherlock capping a period of intense pressure on the Staffs sides line. A Callum McKenzie break set up Greg Robertson for an equally powerful break with debutant Steve Pilkington converting.

A great game, played in the best of spirits between two fine sides.

SCORERS: Sherlock 2, Young, Robertson, Pilkington ( conv).

TACKLER: Plumb 9

A steady performance by Lymm against an under-strength Ormskirk team.

They had an unusually slow start and a surprising number of errors in the early stages which allowed Ormskirk’s excellent 8 to drive under the posts for a good try to bring the score back to 7-12 after 15 mins. Ormskirk’s cause wasn’t helped by their good fly-half having to leave the pitch for 15 mins following a crunching tackle by Johnstone – Lymm removing a player to even the sides up at 14 each until he was able to return.

Lymm then started to get their game together, play some decent rugby and put a few tries on the board. There were a lot of good things going on – speed to the breakdown and support play, but some not so good which will, again, be discussed on the training ground. In the end, though, Lymm ran out comfortable winners. It was encouraging that Lymm’s 8 tries were scored by 7 different players – backs and forwards. Callum Harris was the pick of the backs having a storming game at centre and Nat Johnstone excelled amongst the forwards with a destructive game as flanker.

Tries: Harris(2), Dixon, Mansfield-Hickman, Eakins, Johnstone, Mitchell, McGrail. Conv: Dixon(3).

Thanks to Ormskirk for a testing game, good reffing and fine hospitality.

Lymm ran in 10 tries in a good natured match at Crouchley lane.

The only dark side to the game was the injury sustained by Sam Ward and we wish him well.

SCORERS: Plumb 2, Robertson 2, Halford, Worton, Connor, McKenzie, Jackson, O’Hara, Connor

Training will be at Appleton starting at 10.15am prompt on Sunday 11th.

There will be additional training on Tuesday evening (13th), Thursday evening (15th) and Saturday morning (17th). More details to follow.