Walney Central U12s 30 Barrow Island U12s 4

WALNEY Central completed a Barrow Youth League and KO Cup double with a convincing triumph at Craven Park.

Both teams came into the final expecting a tough game, and it did not disappoint.

Walney kicked off and the initial tackling on the first few sets set the tone for how the match would be played.

Some good, hard tackling from Cents kept Island at bay, and in Walney’s first set, they set up a try.

A great sweeping run from man-of-the-match Luke Broadbent drew the defence across, only for him to feed the ball perfectly to Ryan Wilson, who accelerated into the corner to make it 4-0. Broadbent’s kick from the touchline was on target but fell short.

Over the next few sets there were mistakes from both teams, resulting in knock-ons.

Walney were the first to complete a full set and their kick was chased down by Wilson, who tackled the Island ball carrier on their 10-metre line.

The resulting pressure saw Island knock-on. The ball was taken out of the scrum by captain Rio Corkill, who weaved his way through the defence and made 30 metres before passing to Broadbent.

He once again committed the defence and this time passed to Xander Parramore, who scored in the corner. A difficult kick again missed saw the score at 8-0.

Within a minute of the restart, Cents had scored again.

Evan Rushton caught the kick-off cleanly to make 30 metres before the ball was passed through three sets of hands for Wilson to score once again in the corner. Another missed conversion left it at 12-0.

The next few minutes saw good attacking play from Barrow Island, with hard running from Will Hadwin and Martin Brun, the latter especially proving a handful and taking three strong Walney defenders to bring him to the ground.

But a great run from loose forward Corkill saw him held just short of the line, managing to offload from the tackle to Matty Austin.

He played back towards the centre of the pitch for Corkill to get the ball once again and this time crash over between the posts. Broadbent landed the conversion for an 18-0 half-time lead.

The second half started with Island kicking off and putting pressure on Walney with a good chase.

This caused a knock on from Walney and their opponents continued to drive forward. A strong run by Ben Hampson saw him push the defence back and pass wide to Hadwin, who scored in the corner. The kick from Ellis Archer from wide out was missed for 18-4.

The pressure from Island continued, with their try appearing to galvanise the team.

More good pressing play saw Hampson and Brun put hard runs in and the kick on the fifth tackle was chased well, but just ran dead before Island could reach it.

Walney absorbed the pressure and held Island out before a high tackle saw a penalty awarded to Walney on the 30-metre line.

Broadbent took it quickly and once again fed the ball to Wilson, who completed his hat-trick in the corner.

Another try followed as the ball went through five sets of Walney hands for Broadbent to go over and make it 26-4.

After the restart, Cents played some good rugby now, with Joe Green weaving through the middle of the pack to pass the ball in a move that saw seven Walney players involved and ended with Mitchell Kay scoring out wide to round off the victory.