Hornets’ super effort comes up just short in a tightly-contested final

HFH U12 6 Wigan St Jude’s U12 10 HALTON Farnworth Hornets’ U12s had built for this day all season and took on the favourites Wigan St Jude’s in the North West Counties Cup Final.

Hornets had a lot of defending to do early on, but they were brilliant.

Set after set they kept the opposition out until an unfortunate error in their own 20 gifted St Jude’s more field position.

On this occasion they managed to score in the corner although the conversion was missed.

Halton finally found themselves in decent field position and put St Jude’s under some pressure.

An attack down the right was stopped 10 metres out but excellent passing on the next tackle saw the ball move beautifully from one side of the pitch to the other.

George Delaney then put Liam Hurley over out wide.

Charlie Glover converted to make it 6-4 to Hornets at half-time.

The second half started poorly for Halton as a St Jude’s winger scooted from halfway and found a gap up the middle to score under the posts. The kick was good and Hornets now trailed 10-6.

The rest of the half was more open as both teams attacked well and had chances to score.

Sadly for Hornets they could not take the opportunities when they presented themselves.

All the Hornets lads played brilliantly and worked hard for each other.

On another day the close scoreline could easily have been in Hornets’ favour.

It was tough selecting a man-of-the-match in a game like this.

Special mentions go to Adam Holroyd, Nathan Bannernan and Charlie Glover who got through a ton of work in the forwards and caused the St Jude’s pack problems all day.

Stevie O’Connor was fantastic under pressure from kicks and coped with everything thrown at him, getting the team on the front foot time and time again in the encounter.