Junior Rugby Union – June 4

With the much-needed rain pouring in Scone, Scone Junior Rugby Players headed north-west for the Gunnedah Gala Day.

Hopes of a muddy day were lost, with Gunnedah not enjoying as much rain.

However, the conditions were ideal for some entertaining and tough rugby.

The Scone Juniors are going from strength to strength as we near the halfway point of the season, with everyone from the Under-6’s to the Under-14s learning and growing with every game.

The juniors have a week off this weekend  and will head to Barraba on Sunday, June 19.

Under 12’s – Bob Davidson

With the threat of needing snorkels to play on Sunday we made the short trip to Gunnedah.

Game 1 – We met a very strong home team who had us under all sorts of pressure.

The boys showed their determination yet again however and only lost by 1 try.

Game 2 – Inverell were our next opponents and another tight game saw us go down, again by only 1 try.

Game 3 – A combined Walcha/Barraba/Quirindi team were our last opponents of the day.

As had been the case in the earlier games the game again was very hard fought finishing in a draw.

Very entertaining however and had all the parents on the edge of their seats.

Again all our boys were great on the day with big performances coming from Angus, Dan and Cohen in the forwards. Hunter, Archie and Hamish W in the backs.

Under-10’s Scone Blue – Angus Patterson

Inverell, Moree and Quirindi was the task ahead for Scone Blue.

Inverell, like always, proved a tough gig in the forwards and giving us trouble from the start.

They where winning the break down convincingly and took an early 10 nil lead. Two quick tries on the stroke of half time saw us, luckily, to go into the break equal with a much more committed opposition.

Scone, now awake and committed, scored some great second halve tries on the back of Matty “Thumper” Edwards’ defence.

Matty joined with Snowball Crowther and Will Crompton gave our backs of Maxi Patterson and Super Cooper space to score some great tries.

Alex Bishop had a great day in the forwards enjoying his new role in the team. A solid victory to the Scone lads.

The Moree Bulls didn’t know what hit them with the Scone lads proving too strong in attack and defence.

Angus Beard had a corker of a game supporting his team mates all day and was well supported by Tommy Burnett, H Faulkner and Sasha Studdy, who continues to impress in the Brumbies colours.

Game three saw us come up against our old mates from Quirindi.

Crompty, Cooper and Nicko all had great games in what was a great spectacle of running rugby.

Fantastic work at the breakdown gave our backs good clean quick ball with Max and Nico shifting the ball for our outside backs of Will Nugget, Beardy and Sasha to enjoy some space on the edges.

 

Under-10’s Scone Gold – Angus Patterson

Our opening game was against a much bigger and well drilled Gunnedah outfit.

The Scone boys matched up well and displayed some aggressive defence winning the battle of the breakdown.

Brilliant talking from Blake Grimes, Harry Warner and Rourke Sharpe laid a great platform for our speedy backs Will Officer and Callum Winter to score a few run away tries.

A great win first up to Scone Gold and some solid rugby from Henry Hubbard, Charlie Tydd and Clayton Atkinson.

The second game was against Tamworth who again showed some great skill in tight forward play.

Their big boys made some great runs up the middle of the park but again our last line of defence was solid.

Great efforts in this game from Hugo Firth who searched at the back of the pack for the ball all day and Charlie Tydd who may have found his new position at prop.

In what was a tight finishing game Scone came away with a narrow win with some great support play from Henry Hubbard and Charlton Hall who had his most consistent day of rugby for 2016.

Our last game was against an inform Narrabri team who boast some big speedy players and they showed us how to do it from the whistle with an early try off the kick off.

We hit back quickly with a great running try to Harry Warner. Both teams went try for try all game and our last line defence again was brilliant.

Blake Grimes, Callum Winter and Rouke Sharp again had big games leading from the front in what was a physical game of rugby.

A big thankyou to the boys who filled in from Scone Blue and in the end it was a fitting draw from two of the best teams of the day.

Blake Grimes continually shows us that size doesn’t matter with some fantastic running and text book defence on much bigger lads.

 

Under-8’s Scone Gold – Evan Geary

The Scone Under-8’s took 2 sides to Gunnedah on the weekend.

Scone Gold came up against Narrabri in the first game. It was a very even affair with mauling being the name of the game the Scone boys finding it very hard to get to the ground.

Ted Saunders Archie Mamone and Jock McCosker revelled in the deep dark places that are only spoken of by the forwards allowing both Archie Adkins and Monty Ward-Thomas to find open space and streak away for a try each.

The second game against Barraba was more expansive with both Jock and Archie Mamone getting triples backed up by Monty, Archie Adkins, George Patterson, Andrew Crowther and Will Darling. Defence was strong with James Miller and Lachlan Winter leading the way assisted by Archie Adkins whose defence has become rock solid over the last few games.

Young Lindsay Geary finally broke the drought bustling over for his first career try.

Fending left and right to break tackles he fought hard to get there and was all smiles after he dotted it down.

The third game against the home side  was again very close.

With a very strong and vocal crowd looking on the boys put on a show with both teams getting amongst the tries.

Archie Adkins scored a length of the field effort to claim the draw on the bell and just to prove it wasn’t a fluke Lindsay bagged a second.

Other scorers were Andrew, Will, George and Monty.

Another great carnival done and a weekend off for the long weekend. Next we look forward to Barraba.

 

Under-8’s Scone Blue – Tor Killman

With the clouds threatening to bring weather only a front rower would love, 21 Under-8’s travelled to Gunnedah to compete in the Central North Competition.

Scone Blue started the day off with a hard fought 6 tries to 4 win against Walcha.

With a cold but dry track after the rain, a great display of running rugby with the boys from both sides beating the first tackler.

Laurie Roche continued to add to his season tally with some great running out in the space.

Henry Teague, Lucas Grimes and Lachlan Carter had a great carnival with a great all round effort.

The second game against Narrabri had the guys go down to a very determined side 7 tries to 5 with both teams going try for try until the end where Narrabri managed to get their nose in front.

With Hamish Davidson, James Hannaford and Flynn Killman throwing themselves in the middle they managed to secure some great ball enabling Jason Lighezzolo and Laurie to continue some great running out wide.

The final game of the day against Armidale had the parents from both communities enthralled with an epic arm wrestle between both teams.

The score at the final bell ended with a 7 all draw.

Tom Riordan, Cooper Nicholl and Cormac McClean showed great team spirit to play with Armidale.

This left Tom with bragging rights with a solid effort, managing to score a meat pie against his mates and prevented Jason from scoring almost certain tries with some great cover defence.

Cooper and Cormac worked great together stealing ball and showing some great defence and running with the ball.