Pilkington Recs ARLFC 2 - 3 Thatto Heath

An early start due to the clocks altering saw a full turn out of Pilks U9s on a lovely, Mothers Day morning, and the team did all the Mums proud.

Captains for todays game in the forwards, Aaron Cranny and for the backs, Joshua Thiselton.

From the start both teams attacked strongly and defended superbly.

Thatto started fast and hard, using their big players to power over the line and Pilks knew it was game on.

The starting 9 of Joshua T, Kyle , Jack , Sam , Aaron , Kian , Joshua B, Max and Daniel T regrouped quickly and strengthened their attack with some great running and meters made by Max Tracey and Sam Caddick ,and before we knew Daniel Tabern had used his speed and skill to break the Thatto defence and it was 1-1 and everything to play for.

From that moment Pilks line held strong , with some great try stopping tackles from Jack Bailey, Joshua Thiselton and Kyle Prescot.

Joshua Burton found gaps in the Thatto line , Kian Hurst and Aaron Cranny ran hard but Thatto also held strong.

A change over and our bigger players took over for the rest of the second half. Jacob Wilding, Daniel Sutton,Luc Holloway and Charlie Swift powered forward, testing Thatto.

Some great tackling by Ethan Moore, Reece Boadey and Rebecca Benthom kept Thatto at bay and at half time the score was 1-1.

Both teams started the second half fired up. Charlie Swift especially made a superb run to get the ball over the line and put Pilks 2-1 up.However that spurred Thatto to tighten their defence and even making great meters they were able to stop our team from crossing the line again, Daniel Tabern and Joshua Thiselton were tackled close to the line, Max Tracey and Joshua Burton made fantastic runs but were brought down, and even the strength of Cameron Cranny, Kyle Prescot and Luc Holloway was unable to break through.

As the game was coming to a close Thatto threw their big players forward and scored two quick tries , despite fantastic efforts from our smaller players to try and keep them out.

With a final score of 3-2 to Thatto our team can be proud of the performance today, which showed a maturity and increase in skill and confidence as well as proving how well all the players are now working as a team.

The captains speeches were both similar, in that they recognised how well the team played and where they need to improve on their skill in stopping much bigger players close to the line.

Well done Pilks, keep it up !!!

MAN OF THE MATCH: KYLE PRESCOT
TOP TACKLER: JOSHUA THISELTON
MOST IMPROVED: JOSHUA BURTON

An extra special mention goes today to Pilks U9s first PLAYER OF THE MONTH, a new award to recognise the player who's contribution throughout the month has been second to non, and for March the player who well and truly deserved the title is non other than our only girl on the team, REBECCA BENTHOM. Well done Becca, you've done the team proud!