Rebels 'A' and 'B' teams overcome slow starts in thrilling fixture at home to Wirral

After a great visit to Wirral in November the Rebels were looking forward to this return fixture which, like the first meeting, was split into an 'A' squad and a Development squad.

Game 1 for the 'A' squad looked to be starting well with early tries from Ben Lomax and Harrison Dillon but tagging was inconsistent and this allowed Wirral back into the game.

A flurry of tries from Wirral in the middle of the game only matched by further tries from Ben and Harrison meant, as the game went into the last quarter, that the Rebels were down by three tries.

Ben Lomax led a concerted improvement on tagging and picked up a couple of loose balls for two further tries himself whilst Sam Roberts and Jacob Sollory-Park also went over but two fumbled touch downs meant that the Rebels lost the game 8-9.

The Development squad, captained by Oliver Hunter-Robinson, welcomed two new players for their first game , Ben Harrison and Oliver Cooper but it was a bit of a baptism of fire as Wirral were able to exploit the Rebels inexperience.
Despite two tries from Ruari Byrne and a debut score from Ben Harrison, the Rebels stood back too far off the opposition and as a result Wirral ran out winners 3-8.

Chastened by their early defeat, the A Team came out all guns blazing for game 2. Ben Lomax and Sam Roberts led a charge on tagging, driving the opposition back and helping themselves to turnover ball that Ben converted into five tries with Ryan Edwards and Harrison Dillon (2) adding furthers scores to register an emphatic 8-3 win.

Not to be left out, the Development team, clearly getting the hang of things, picked up their game and improved their positional play and tagging to halt Wirral's scoring run.

Ruari Byrne got another pair of tries, rookie Ben Harrison bagged himself a pair and Oliver Cooper marked his debut with a well taken try, giving the Development team a well deserved 5-4 victory.

Both game three results were draws, highlights being the tagging of the A team and another pair of tries for Ben Harrison!

Ben Lomax won top tagger for the umpteenth time but the coaches were delighted with the overall A team tagging, a look at the stats shows that the team did an average of more than ten tags per game better than their previous best.

Reward for Ben's relentless tagging was turnover ball and he used this well to take the top try scorer award too with ten tries, well done Ben.

Another repeat winner was Kai Jamson who took the passing award again, well done Kai!

And finally, with five tries on his debut the coaches' award was an easy choice, well done Ben Harrison!