West & Aire Wharfe U.12's District Festival

A very well supported District Festival hosted at Salem provided competition from across the District with 8 teams from Old Brods, Wharfedale, Ilkley, North Ribblesdale, Bradford Salem, Skipton & The Bees in attendance.

Despite being overwhelmed in the first game by Old Brods who regularly have a squad of over 20 boys to choose from, the boys settled into their stride for the second game against Skipton and despite narrowly losing, ran in tries from Sam Mantle and a joint effort from Sam Conroy and Tom Deacon, with both claiming the try!!

Our last game was against North Ribb which was pleasing as we’d been scheduled to play them up in the Dales that morning and despite a physical encounter at times with their borrowed players, the Bees played well and were unlucky to lose.

So, the journey continues and again there were glimpses of the potential that this Team threatens to release and it was welcoming to see a really positive attitude from all our players who played their hearts out despite having a Team of only 10 boys which meant that everyone had to play solidly throughout the 3 games…… well done boys, we’re proud of you all!

Next week we host Huddersfield at Wagon Lane which will be a useful test of our improvement since we played them on the first match of the season back at the start of October, but before that some serious work on our fitness & tackling technique on Friday night…..

Man of the Match – Sam Mantle

Team: Luka Atanaskovic, Thomas Carnelly, Sam Conroy, Ben Feather, Connor Gill, Emilio Horn, Tolly Lickley, Callum McGinty, Sam Mantle, Niall Turner