Cumbria Rugby Union celebrated a hat trick of wins with both Cumbria Women and Cumbria Men victorious in their respective County Championship matches, and Cumbria Under-17s storming through with an impressive second half comeback to defeat Northumberland at Wigton RUFC in their County Under-17s Boys match, writes Ben Challis.
Cumbria Men had an important away win at Blaydon RUFC on Saturday, travelling over to the North East to face Durham and bringing back a 48-19 victory.
Closer to home, Cumbria Women fought back from a 10-19 half time deficit to score 17 unanswered points in the second half to defeat Hertfordshire 27-19 at Penrith RUFC.
And Cumbria Under-17s put the icing on the cake with the win at Wigton on Rugby Club on Sunday, again trailing at half time, but storming through the second half with five excellent tries to defeat Northumberland Under-17s by 31 points to 19.
That result certainly didn’t look very likely in the opening minutes, and indeed after just two minutes Northumberland had scored with a converted try from Archie Middlemist, and four minutes after that the visitors added a second for a 0-14 lead.
Cumbria’s captain Ashton Quigley marshalled his troops, Cumbria regrouped, and as the first half progressed Cumbria got back into the game and began to take control. From stemming what looked like an unstoppable Northumberland tide, with the visitors stronger in the scrum, dominant in line outs and showing pace and skill coming forwards, good defensive play from Cumbria set the foundations for a change in fortunes.
It was a last ditch and heroic tackle from Wigton’s Ellis Holliday just a couple of metres short of the Cumbria try line, blocking the attack and forcing a spilled ball from a charging Christie Olanrewaju, which seemed to set a marker down, and as the first half progressed it was Northumberland who were now on the back foot, increasingly kept deep in their own half, as Cumbria had repeated attempts to score, putting real pressure on the Northumberland try line, with Quigley and Flynn Manihera driving Cumbria forwards.
Marcus Hamilton had two good powerful runs deep into Northumberland territory, Nathan Rickerby was denied just a metre out, and Quigley held up on the line, but Cumbria just couldn’t get the ball over the try line and went into half time 0-14 down.
Cumbria began the second half with impressive drives forwards from Zack Dodd and Lewis Wood, but it was the introduction of Ollie Green from the bench that was the game changer. Cockermouth & Keswick Osprey Green made valuable yards with decisive ball carrying for Cumbria, battering his way into the Northumberland defence, and Cumbria were rewarded when another Osprey, Josh Doran, collected the ball from the base of the ruck and used his strength to power through a wall of Northumberland defenders to ground the ball for an unconverted try.
With Carlisle’s Alex Palmer a key element in moving the Cumbrian pack forwards in attack, next over for the home side was Green with a charge up the right wing and a dive in to score, with Green converting his own try with a well taken kick in the blustery wind.
With the score now at 12-14 the next try would be critical, and it was Holliday who gave Cumbria the lead, bursting through the middle of the field on an rapid, uncatchable and unstoppable trajectory to land under the sticks, giving Green an easy conversion and Cumbria the 19-14 lead.
Although the scoreline was close, Cumbria now looked dominant, with Kendal’s Johnny Swallow impressive and ever busy around the field, and another barnstorming charge from Green set up prop Owen Ackerley who showed a surprising turn of speed to charge down the middle of the park, neatly avoiding desperate two tacklers, to crash over under sticks to a roar of approval from his team mates.
Another conversion from Green made it 26-14. The clock was ticking down, and Northumberland now threw everything they had at Cumbria and took advantage of a line out to score their third try, this one unconverted for 26-19.
In the dying minutes Doran was held up just to the right of the sticks, but Green put the result beyond doubt with a carbon copy of his first try, again diving over on the right wing and although the conversion was missed it mattered not with the scoreline at 31-19, and Cumbria could celebrate a hard fought battle, a fantastic team effort and a thrilling win.
After the match coach Garry Holmes complemented his players on their outstanding defensive efforts, and how well each and every Cumbrian player had performed to turn the game around and secure the win.
Cumbria U17s: 1. Jack Johnson-Murphy (Kendal), 2. Josh Doran (Ospreys), 3. Owen Ackerley (Ospreys), Matthew Capstick (Kendal), 5. Matthew Bowe (Wigton), 6. Josh Wilson (Ospreys) , 7. Archie Irving (Wigton), 8. Ashton Quigley (C, Ospreys), 9. Henry Rawlings (Carlisle), 10. Flynn Manihera (VC, Wigton), 11. Jaydn Johnston (Wigton), 12. Alfie Wright (Ospreys), 13. Marcus Hamilton (Wigton), 14. Ellis Holliday (Wigton), 15. Fraser Williamson (Wigton), 16. Ethan Davies (Kendal)17 Nathan Rickerby (Ospreys), 18. Lewis Wood (St Benedicts), 19. Alex Palmer (Carlisle) 20, Johnny Swallow (Kendal), 21. Zack Dodd (Kendal) 22. Ollie Green (Ospreys).
Northumberland U17s: 1. Jack Smith (Alnwick RFC), 2. Thomas Wilson (Percy Park), 3. Ayaan Miah (Blaydon), 4. Conor Carolan (Alnwick), 5. Ethan Thompson (Northern FC) 6. Joshua Cox (Percy Park), 7. Archie Middlemist (Alnwick), 8. Angus Middlemist (Alnwick), 9. Lennon Hulme (Percy Park),10. Edward Stones (Royal Grammar School) 11. Christie Olanrewaju (Blaydon), 12. Sam Owens (WB Rockcliff), 13. AJ Burn (C, Alnwick),14. Callum Riccalton (Tynedale), 15. Joshua Robertson (Northern),16. Max Rowley (Blaydon),17. George Bell (Novocastrians), 18. Zak Brooks (Novocastrians), 19. Adam Watson (WB Rockcliff) , 20. Jack Miller (Novocastrians), 21. Theo Walton (Percy Park), 22. Sam Brooks (Novocastrians), 23. Fred Hinchcliffe Smith (Northern)
Match officials: Martin Denvir, Martin Maughan, Nathaniel Mitten and Danny Airey.
