St Helens U18s Team 80 v 16 Salford City Reds U18s Team
By Graham Henthorne, Team Manager
The Academy turned on the style at a sun drenched GPW Recruitment Stadium on Saturday with a 14 try demolition of Salford.
Nathan Ashe and Jordan Case led the way with hat-tricks with six other scorers.
Jordan Case opened the scoring when he pounced on a loose ball offloaded behind the Salford line as the Reds player was pushed in goal by some determined Saints tackling. The conversion was the first of 12 for Adam Barber in the afternoon.
The Reds hit back capitalising on indiscipline from the Saints to score before Ashe went over for the first of his haul. A big drive from Jordan ONeill, the first of many in the day, put the Saints on the front foot and Ashe stepped through unopposed at the play the ball.
From the restart, Case went 40 metres through the heart of the visitors defence and Ashe dummied his way over on the last.
Anthony Walker got the first of his brace spinning out of the tackle to score before his front row partner Joe Bate stormed onto a short ball from Aaron Lloyd to stride over from 40 out.
Cases second of the half, again reacting quickly to a Salford knock on to pick up and score after good work from Joe Greenwood and Josh Jones, stretched the lead to 36 4.
The Reds gave themselves the merest sniff of a chance with a 70 metre move down the right which gave them double figures at the break.
However, the procession not only continued after the break, but got worse.
Jordan ONeill broke through and Jack Francis was on hand to take a surprise pass to charge over. Marcus Baines 30 metres break was finished off by prop cum stand off Ant Walker striding over from 30 out (not 70 Walks!!) and the 50 was brought up when James Hill scored his first from a neat run-around play from a scrum 10 out.
From the kick off Danny Wakefield took a short ball to shoot through the line and on approaching the full back held the ball up beautifully to allow debutant full back John Fisher to go the last 40 to score.
James Hill finished bravely in the corner after a delightfully disguised ball from Joe Greenwood. Nathan Ashe jinked over untouched for his hat-trick after a Salford knock on had gifted him possession and he had almost gone in for a fourth before he lost possession onto his back where it was gleefully snatched by Danny Wakefield for the 7th try of the half.
The visitors gained a modicum of comfort as stand off Tom Whitehead capitalised on a Saints knock on. But the last word, and point a minute score, fittingly went to the Saints and fittingly was the hat-trick score for impressive loose forward Jordan Case.
This was a very ruthless performance from an Academy side that grows in stature and confidence with each performance. Ant Walker led the line, ably supported by the Joes, Bate and Greenwood and the strong running Jordan ONeill. Nathan Ashe was his enigmatic self, but the star of the show was Jordan Case who was at the heart of all that was good for the Academy.
Loading...
9:48Saints U18s demolish England U18 AER @ Solihull...by BaasLV314 views
Link to this comment:
All Comments (0)