It ended up all square in the 2024 Cumbria State of Origin games between age group teams from West Cumbria and the Barrow and District youth RL, writes Ben Challis.
West Cumbria dominated in the Under-14’s game, and Barrow Under-16’s won by just one point in a thrilling finale to an exceptional day of rugby league at Lowca.
The morning had a tasty starter, with the host club Lowca’s Under 15s taking on Latchford Giants Under 15s in the North West Counties League, and the 28-12 win for the home side whetted the crowd’s appetite for another West Cumbrian win.
With a large and growing crowd giving excellent support for both Cumberland and Barrow, West Cumbria Under 14’s took on their south Cumbrian counterparts in the first of the State of Origin games.
Both teams had drawn extensively from their community rugby league clubs, but after a fairly even first five minutes when the sides tested each other, the impressive Ashton Hetherington opened the scoring after he sprinted through and crashed over for the first of a hat trick of tries.
Barrow were just unable to stop West Cumbria’s fast running backs and powerful centre.
Equally impressive was Distington’s Kai Speight who went over for two excellent tries to add to his Kell’s team mate’s three, and there were six more tries from Wath Brow’s Olsen Sharp, Cockermouth Titan Charlie Tucker, and the Kells quartet of Archie Robinson, Ollie Wright, Harry Vaughan and Rhys Williamson.
Eight conversions from Williamson brought-up a final scoreline of 60-0 to West Cumbria.
The Under Sixteens clash was much closer and ended up as fantastic battle between two well-matched sides which went down to the wire in a nail-biting finale.
It was try-for-try throughout the game, with a half-time score of 12-10 to Barrow, and then with West Cumbria taking the lead only for Barrow to pull the scoreline level at 22-22 with ten minutes left to play.
The West Cumbria tries came from the impressive Wath Brow Hornet Logan Fowler (2), and Hensingham’s Jack Carney and Marcus Hamilton, with three out of four conversions from Kell’s Rylan Templeton.
The Barrow tries came from the equally impressive Jack Barker (Millom), Isaac Goulding (Dalton), Niall Maudsley (Dalton) and Reien Weightman (Millom), with Connor Grant (Dalton) also kicking three out of four conversions.
As the clock ticked down West Cumbria’s captain Templeton almost barrelled through for a touchdown, but superb Barrow defence held him up, and the match was decided at the death by a well taken drop goal from Barrow’s Braith Lupton (Millom) just three minutes from referee Neil Byer’s final whistle a game that will not be forgotten for a while as a ‘proper game of rugby league’.
West Cumbria’s U16’s assistant coach Mark Thornton reflected on the game and congratulated Barrow on the win, saying that the victors “had a game plan and stuck with it”.
Thornton also emphasised how important the games had been in developing representative rugby in Cumbria, opening up pathways to young players to develop their game and progress in the sport, whether with community clubs in local leagues and the National Conference League or in the professional game.
