Hull Victoria U12s 12 v Stanley Wildcats U12s 12
(BARLA Cup, Round 1)
27.09.08

The Wildcats made their debut in this national competition and gave an outstanding performance under some diversity. Stanley only had 14 players, 1 substitute, and this was further reduced mid way through the first half after a serious knee injury to prop forward Connor Morgan. The game was held up for 40 minutes for an ambulance to take Connor to hospital for further treatment. At this time the score was already 4-0 in favour of the hosts after the usual slow start from the Wildcats and on the resumption it was the hosts that handled the break the better by scoring from the restart to make the score 8-0. To make matters worse it was the hosts that extended their lead with a third try. None of the conversions were successful leaving the half time score at 12-0 to the hosts.

The second half was a different game altogether with the Wildcats pressing the Hull line for long periods. It was the Wildcats that registered the first try of the half through Tom Shippen. The difficult conversion was missed.This gave the Wildcats more confidence and it was Tom Shippen that doubled his and the Wildcats try scoring adding a second out wide. Again the conversion was missed. The Wildcats were now enjoying their best spell of the game and had the hosts defending desperately and but for some very poor decision from the Hull- based referee they would have gone on to win the game. Powerful prop Ben Fisher went over for a try to tie the scores at 12-12. Again the kick was missed. The final 10 minutes saw the Wildcats test the Hull line and in the very last minute of the game Robert Hartley went over by the posts for the winning score, or what the Wildcats and Hull thought was the winning score only for the referee to rule out the try for being held up over the line. This was the worst decision of the game and was the one that kept the hosts in the game as all the Hull players thought they were out of the competition and there were no complaints from them about the legality of the score. The final whistle came very shortly after this decision and the game ended level.

This meant that the game went in to extra time and after a monumental effort it was the hosts that ran out winners with a further try in each half, again with more poor decisions from the referee .Overall the Wildcats gave Hull a fantastic game and after all that had gone on before the Wildcats could be very pleased with their efforts and they went away knowing that they had the game taken away from them by the referee.

The weekly awards went to: Parents Man of the Match - Jacob Unwin;Coaches Man of the Match - Robert Hartley and Magic Moment - Tom Shippen.