30 Mar 2008 - Lancashire Cup Winners

Rylands Sharks 26 - 18 Saddleworth Rangers.

We were treated to some rare Oldham sunshine for this BARLA Lancashire Cup Final held at Oldham RUFC, and Rylands ran out worthy winners in the Under 13s final.

Rylands were slow to settle and Saddleworth capitalized on that and scored first. The Sharks didn’t let their heads go down and soon equalized with an excellent try from Lewis Charnock, which he converted himself. Rylands added a second when Allan King collected a kick from Luke Walker, which was again converted by Lewis Charnock. Saddleworth hit back with their second try, making the half-time score 12-12.

Rylands got into their stride in the second half and came close a few times before Ryan Mercer forced his way through Saddleworths defence to cross under the sticks giving Lewis Charnock an easy conversion. Rylands scored again through Allan King who got the ball down in the left corner despite Saddleworths efforts to keep him out. The game was by no means over as Saddleworth came back with a good try which they converted to bring the scores to 22-18 with 7 minutes to go. Disaster almost struck when Rylands lost a player to the sin bin just 5 minutes from the end, but they doubled their efforts in defence to cover for him. In the last play of the game Rylands made a final push and offloaded twice when Saddleworth thought they had tackled the man with the ball to allow Luke Walker to score a try on the right wing, bringing the final score to 26 -18.

Try scorers for Rylands: Allan King 2, Lewis Charnock , Ryan Mercer , Luke Walker

Goal scorers Lewis Charnock 3

Other good performers Man of the Match – Ryan Mercer