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Lions U16’s Experience their Second Ever game of Rugby League

26 July 2021

Manchester Lions U16’s played their second game of Rugby League together in the space of 5 days on Sunday, their opponents were Leyland who have not lost a game all season and are a well established Junior Rugby League club.

The game was played in tremendous sprit by both teams and proved to be another great step in the development of these young players who have tasted competitive rugby league for the very first time this week.

The Lions got off to a fantastic start with pressure from strong defence forcing errors from the Leyland team, Lions second row forward Dan Welford scored the first try of the match in his first game of rugby league. Leyland then scored the next try and levelled the game. The next three tries were scored by Leyland despite really big defensive efforts by the Lions.

The second half started at a frantic pace with both sides managing to break the lines of opposition defences, Will Hitchen, Joe Retalica and Sahib Kanda all causing the Leyland team problems with their attacking play.

The Rugby League experience of Leyland players started to tell and they scored some good tries against Lions’ hardworking defence. Dan Welford then went over for his second of the game which this time was converted.

Leyland scored the last try of the game which brought the final score to 10-30. The Lions squad received a huge round of applause from all the supporters after the game and Lions U16s coach Gareth Pratt made a special point to everyone that after only 7 or 8 training sessions together the players have performed amazingly well and even more so by playing their first two games of rugby league in five days against established teams.

He also thanked all the families and friends who came to support and help both teams. Next training session is Wednesday evening, 6.45pm at Carrington.

Lions’ Squad v Leyland :

Alex Curley
Joe Waring
Will Celleria
Alex Anthony
Will Hitchen
Dylan Clark
Tom Crowe Moore
Joe Retalic
Will Claxton
Fraser Gillan
Harry Jamieson
Dan Kenrick
Dan Dockry
Sahib Kanda
Dan Welford
Jackson Highley
Josh Gibbon
Ollie Hillier

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