Junior Rugby Union – May 8

SCONE Junior Rugby players stepped up a notch at their second carnival in Narrabri last weekend.

The weather was perfect for the trip up north and the players across all age groups were determined to show the strength of the Scone Club.

With big victories, narrow defeats and entertaining play, this season is shaping up to be a successful one for Scone.

Teams head further north to the Inverell Gala Day on Sunday, May 29.

Under-12s – Coach Robert Davidson

Round 2 of this year’s carnivals saw us travel to Narrabri this weekend and the conditions were summer compared with our previous hit out.

Game 1 had us playing Tamworth for the first time this year and the boys put in a strong display, especially the back line, to start our day with a comfortable win.

Game 2 and again we were playing our great foe Narrabri.

This game was everything we have come to expect when our two sides have met over the last few years with a typically tough battle in the forwards and great attack and defence from both sets of backs.

Narrabri edged past us though for a 1 try victory.

Game 3 had us playing the second Narrabri side entered for this carnival.

Our boys looked particularly strong in the first half but could not crack what was a determined defence.

In what was another great game, our boys again were just pipped by 1 try but showed great signs of improvement.

Well done to all the boys with some very positive rugby played throughout the day.

Hamish White, Jack Teague and Cohen Watson were strong up front.

Hunter Ryan, Roly Ward-Thomas and Josh Crowther made plenty of meters out wide.

Under-10’s Blue – Coach Angus Patterson

With a warm 26 degrees forecasted, the trip to Narrabri was always going to be an inviting one.

Scone Under-10’s fielded two teams with Scone Blue drawing Narrabri, Tamworth and Walcha.

Narrabri/Scone always produce tough contests and today proved to be no different.

In warm conditions, the two teams battled it out with Scone Blue winning 5 tries to 2.

Our forwards had a strong game with Matty Edwards and Shiv Porter earning respect in both defence and attack continually getting us on the front foot.

This forward momentum gave our halve pairing of Max Patterson and Cooper Wilson room to run with both lads enjoying the space with ball in hand.

I don’t know what it is but Tamworth always prove to be tougher than they should be.

They genuinely cause us grief in the forwards proving to be a better rucking team than ourselves.

The lads came away with a very tough victory scoring two late tires to make it 20 to 5.

Angus “the flea” Beard had his best game of the year with some great runs backed up by Snowball Crowther, Will Nugget, Kael Saw and Alex Bishop.

The third and final game against Walcha was a game of two halves.

The first halve very scrappy, with the Scone lads playing down to their opposition and not playing to any structure.

A half time speech by Turtle Burnett had the team back on track playing the structure they are known for.

A solid victory 40 to 5 with big Will Crompton, H Faulkner and Tommy Burnett all playing a strong game in both attach and defence.

The support play shown by our players throughout the day was fantastic with many of our tries scored after multiple phases and some good close passing to our enthusiastic support players. Well played lads!

Under-8’s – Coach Evan Geary

A glorious day met the twelve young boys who braved the trip to Narrabri on Sunday and it was straight down to business with two quick wins notched up in the first two games of the day.

The first of the day against Armidale was a dominant performance with the Scone lads out playing their opponents in all areas of the game.

Cormac McClean made some good runs while Jock McCosker and Tom Riordan were good in defence.

Monty Ward-Thomas, Hamish Davidson and Archie Atkins all got amongst the points but the standout was Laurie Roche with three tries and the play of the day which saw him run down a would be Armidale try scorer meters from the line after a length of the field dash before reclaiming the ball and running the length of the field himself evading all and sundry on the way to score in the corner. Great effort.

The second game saw Scone rekindle their battle against Moree. A much better drilled Moree side met Scone this week with a lot of tackling from Andrew Crowther, Lindsay Geary and especially Henry Teague holding the Moree side at bay.

Try scorers were Laurie and Archie while Monty stood out this game with a triple.

The third game was a much closer affair against Inverell.

The cleaning out at the rucks by George Patterson and Monty was great all day but in this game they really stood up helped by James Miller in defence.

Tom, Andrew, Henry and George were all rewarded for their efforts with a try each along with old faithful Laurie Roche with a fifth try for the day.

Thanks to Narrabri for a great carnival.

Onward and upward to Inverell next carnival.