South Cumbria 12 West Cumbria 6


SOUTH Cumbria’s under-14s produced a strong performance in defence to down rivals West Cumbria 12-6 in the annual Origin clash between the two teams.

Tries from Khian Murt, Ryan Higgins and Morgan Burgess secured victory for the hosts in the showdown at Roose Pioneers on Sunday after West Cumbria had taken the lead.

Simon Woodend, who coached the team along with Neil Anderson-Moore, John Johnson and Chris Burgess, was delighted with the effort from the players and praised their defence as crucial to the win.

“It was a great display of true grit rugby from the Barrow lads,” said Woodend.

“The forwards dominated and set the platform for the pivots to work off and boss the plays which in turn gave space for the backs to perform. Defence for Barrow was fantastic and certainly won us the game, with no-one taking a backward step.

“Its been a pleasure to coach these local lads and everyone involved with the Origin under-14s team have enjoyed the challenge of pulling this team together.”

The South Cumbria team was comprised of players from Askam, Barrow Island, Dalton, Millom and Walney, with the forwards getting stuck into each other early on.

The visitors took the lead in the first half following a spell of pressure which saw them force several repeat sets and a goal-line drop-out, scoring a try and converting to go six points up.

However, South Cumbria rallied after the restart and manage to get over the line themselves when some good play between the backs, and strong running from Rhys Bartlett, Evan Jones and Fenton Postlethwaite led to Murt jinking through the defence to score.

The missed conversion meant the home side were two points down at half-time, but South Cumbria went ahead after the break when Max Anderson-Moore, Jones and Burgess moved the ball quickly for Higgins to dive over in the corner.

And Burgess grabbed the game-clinching try inside the final ten minutes, starting and then powering through to finish another good move, with Jack Stephens seeing his conversion attempt hit the posts.

“All of the lads played out of their skins and were a credit to themselves, their local clubs and Barrow,” said Woodend.

“Each lad deserved to wear the shirt and took great pride to represent the area on the day.

“It would be great if we could expand on this and bring more local lads and local coaches into the fold and create a Barrow side for this age group, and get these lads a few more higher level games each year against other ‘state of origin’ teams from other areas like Lancashire or Yorkshire to promote our local lads and their talents.”