Rebels beat the hosts in the Plate Final!

On a gloriously warm and sunny Sunday we took a squad of ten to the Manchester Festival with no real hopes other than to give our players a good run out.

Game 1 versus Sandbach shocked the coaches and parents as the 'Rebels' blasted out of the blocks and stormed the opposition. We had decided to start with our most experienced six and it seemed to pay off, Harrison Dillon top-scoring with three of our seven tries , final try tally, 7-2.

Game 2 and, having committed to our less experienced players that they would start the next game it was with some trepidation that they faced Trafford MV's, a team that had given us a thrashing last season.

Relentless tagging saw our players chase TMV back up the pitch time after time with Jacob Sollory-Park, Zak Mitchell and Harry Whittaker putting in some great work.

At half time we were a try adrift at 2-3 and decided to put the whole bench of 'super-subs' on. The more experienced players carried on where their team mates left off, keeping TMV away from our try line but helping themselves to tries too leading to a final score of 6-4…Sam Roberts, Ben Lomax, Sam Hanna and Josh Barnard all scoring in the second half.

Game 3 was against a well-drilled Macclesfield side but due to a discipline issue during the break we started this match without two of our experienced players.

Macclesfield lived up to expectations and ran in a number of stylish tries passing the ball along the line and taking a lead of 1-4 at half time.

In the second half we were back up to full strength but despite winning the half we couldn't pull back the deficit and lost the match 4-6, thereby coming second in the pool and entering the Plate competition.

Plate Semi Final
We decided to start the match with our four most experienced players on the bench allowing our less experienced players game time and with some confidence that the 'super-sub' strategy from Game 2 could work again.
Our opposition was Kersal who were held in check in the first half, once again by our aggressive tagging led by Ruari Byrne.
The second half saw the introduction of the super subs but this was really the Ryan Edwards show as Ryan ran in a hat rick of tries to help us finish the match as 6-4 winners.

Plate Final.
We were drawn against hosts Manchester so obviously faced a partisan crowd. We often say 'winning isn't everything' but it still felt like a brave decision to use the super subs strategy against a physically bigger side but the coaches felt that all players should get a run in the final so in we went.

Manchester came out all guns blazing and were were quickly down 0-3. We had decided that if the gap got to three we'd make the switch before half time so after three minutes we introduced the super subs.

If the Semi-final belonged to Ryan Edwards, the Final was Sam Roberts' show, scoring five tries after being brought on and leading the time to victory with a final score of 9-4!