Hull FC Under 16s won two out of three modified, 10-a-side games against Wakefield Trinity’s Scholarship outfit tonight.
The visitors enjoyed comfortable wins in their first two matches, and Callum Barley’s try with two minutes remaining in the final game ensured Hull’s Under 16s remained undefeated on the night.
Under the modified rules, advocated by both clubs and the RFL, each team played with ten players on the field, with no more than two players in a tackle. There would be no conversions, and the game would restart after a try with a 20-metre play-the-ball to the conceding team. Matches lasted 30 minutes.
Here’s a recap of the key events in each of the three games.
Match One: Trinity Scholars 4-16 Hull Scholars
Taking advantage of the open space out wide, Tyler Eccles provided an early ball to Zak Nelson-Hewitt, who fended off his opposite number and raced in to open the scoring on what would turn out to be a very busy evening.
Wakefield pegged the visitors back just a couple of minutes later, with a very similar move. The fullback shipped the ball out wide early, and the left winger strolled in at the corner.
After a brief water-break, Hull scored two quickfire tries to go two scores in front. First, Finlay Davies’ cutout pass allowed Eccles to power over in the left corner, before a glorious move to the left edge saw Cohen Cass finish from inside his own half.
And to put the icing on the cake for Hull’s Under 16s at the end of the first game, a carbon copy of the first. Eccles found Nelson-Hewitt, and the winger navigated his way over the whitewash
Squads & Scorers
Hull: Eccles, Tann, Cass, Edwards, Nelson-Hewitt, H Turner, Batty, Minns-Strachan, Davies, McCracken; Topham
Hull Tries: Nelson-Hewitt (2), Eccles, Cass
Trinity: McLelland, Sheard, Ashman, Morgan, Walsh, Cummins, Early, Abraham, Rolls, Greaves; Adamski, Lomax
Trinity Tries: Walsh
Match Two: Trinity Scholars 8-20 Hull Scholars
Hull wasted no time with getting on with the second game of the evening, and they hit the front inside two minutes. A strong set gave the visitors dangerous field position, and Leo Williams’ dummy-half pass was the perfect offering for big forward Jackson Smith to bash the front door down to score underneath the uprights.
Halfback Ellis Chapman, impressive in his last outing against Bradford a fortnight ago, spotted Rhys Yorke in space on the right wing, but few inside the ground expected the outside back to round four Wakefield defenders on a mazy run to finish off a phenomenal individual effort.
Yorke was well and truly in the thick of the action, embroiled in an entertaining battle with his opposite number Max Hobson throughout. The Wakefield number two got the better of Yorke, claiming Toby Cumiskey’s kick to the corner.
But the Hull FC winger was continuing to step into the spotlight, doing well to stay in the field off play under pressure and get a quick play-the-ball away for Leo Williams to scoot over from dummy half in the left corner.
The Black & Whites’ opposite winger, Lewis Ells-Fontana, was feeling left out, so got in on the try-scoring action, collecting a floated Kingsley Sharpe pass to race in from halfway.
Trinity pulled a try back with just over five minutes remaining as Charlie Tinker took in Declan Sidwell’s cutout pass, but Finlay Davies’ rapid run out of dummy-half ensured that Hull had the final say in their game two victory.
Squads & Scorers:
Hull: Prigorkins, Yorke, Sugden, Kassim, Ells-Fontana, Chapman, Sharpe, Peacock, Williams, Smith; Hughes
Hull Tries: Smith, Yorke, Williams, Ells-Fontana, Davies
Trinity: Tinker, Hobson, Hylton, Sidwell, Cumiskey, Newton, Rowse, Hartley, Smith, Andrews-Nichol
Trinity Tries: Hobson, Tinker
Match Three: Trinity Scholars 16-16 Hull Scholars
In the tightest battle of the evening, the visitors took the lead inside five minutes. Welsh hooker Harri Lloyd supplied the perfect dummy-half pass for Vincent Donnachie to crash over to the left side of the sticks.
But Wakefield’s quality was such that they scored three tries without reply inside seven minutes.
First, James Sharp made a powerful break down the left flank, pinning the ears back to score from range.
Despite Hull’s best efforts in scramble defence, they couldn’t prevent Zack Clegg from grounding Dan Hetherington’s grubber kick on the last play.
And the Airlie Birds found themselves 12-4 behind when Keaton Holland was there on the inside to support Hetherington’s break down the right wing.
In a strong showing of spirit against what appeared to be the strongest Wakefield line-up of the evening, Hull ran in two tries to level the scores as Josh Horne took centre stage.
First, his elusive run saw him offload to Lloyd, who scored with ease under the sticks. Then, his grubber kick through deflected off a Wakefield player and back up into his hands, allowing him to breeze through a disconnected defensive line to score.
Hull thought they had blown their chances when Robbie Brook’s ball on the inside to Otis Stevens exposes a fatigued FC pack, but Callum Barley ran the perfect line off Owen Bartle to score from 35 metres out, rescuing a draw with two minutes on the clock.
Squads & Scorers:
Hull: T Turner, Gladstone, Barley, Cheshire, Tallantire, Bartle, Horne, Donnachie, Lloyd, Boulter; Bone
Hull Tries: Donnachie, Lloyd, Horne, Barley
Trinity: Maycoe, Sharp, Harlow-Stephenson, Pavier, Hetherington, Brook, Holland, Clegg, Gaunt, Wilks; English, Stephens
Trinity Tries: Sharp, Clegg, Holland, Stephens
STORY SPONSOR
