Greater Manchester Schools Games 2019 – Rugby Success!

The St Mary’s Year 5/6 Rugby League squad represented Salford Schools today in the Greater Manchester Schools Games. We were one of only two schools representing Salford and the squad were amazing, tremendous, motivated and passionate about the games.

It all started with a trip to the Etihad campus where we joined all the other winning schools and were treated to some fantastic dancing, live music, brilliant commentary from our host and then the children received some inspirational words from Olympic and World Bronze medal winner, Emily Diamond. After the opening ceremony it was off on our coach to the Armitage Centre in Fallowfield where the action was going to take place.

The team were drawn in a tough group and the opening match was a hard fought draw against St Chads and then the squad started to find their rhythm and belief. The next game was an inspiring 2-0 win against Moorfield and we followed it up with a ‘local derby’ (for Mr Chadwick anyway) against St Johns in Chorlton where the team were resilient and triumphed 2-1. Within this game, Oscar was singled out by the opposition for possessing Self Belief and received a badge from their players to show his achievement.

Our final group games was against Sacred Heart where they children went into overdrive with a 4-0 win. The scores were coming from all over the team, Diego, Gabriel, Oscar, Bobby, Brad & Christian and they were backed up with runners and support play.

So we had won the group and remained undefeated. Now on to the knockout rounds and all to play for. The quarter finals was the hardest game yet with willing runners and wily players on the opposition squad but again St Mary’s triumphed 2-1 after taking the lead and then being pegged back.

In the Semi-final we took on the eventual winners, Gilded Hollins from Wigan and the contest was even throughout. The squad were tremendous in the teamwork, passion and resilience they showed after we took the lead again ( a running theme in all games), gave away a good score to the opposition before cruelly having a score ruled out. Regular time ran out and it was on to Golden Point time and even though we attacked the opposition just managed to get that crucial score. So our run to the final had ended and the players were all devastated, exhausted and disappointed to go out in a tournament they believed was theirs.

We had to pick ourselves up for the third place play-off and it was emotionally just a step too far. The team performed again but crucially another disallowed score meant we lost the final match 2-1. All the results show how close the games actually were and the standards in teh knock-out rounds was very, very high.

Mr Worrall and I were very proud of our squad, all twelve of them. We would like to make a special mention to four of our players, Alex, Daniel, Joshua & Conor, who whilst not receiving the amount of game time they would have wanted, never stopped supporting their teammates and when called upon were just as fantastic as the others. Such difficult decisions for Mr Worral and i were made easier by this splendid attitude and we are even prouder of them. Three of them are in Year 5 so next year they will be leading the team to further glory! It shows that St Mary’s Mates are alive and kicking.

The team received the glowing endorsement from the organisers that never before had a Salford school been within the top ten so to be the fourth best team in Greater Manchester, out of over 8500 primary schools is a massive achievement and the children should definitely hold their heads high and feel honoured to represent the school, their peers, the local school community, Salford and of course themselves.

Well played and thank you for such a passionate and determined performance over the day: Alex, Conor, Niamh, Joshua, Diego, Christian, Poppy, Gabriel, Bobby, Daniel, Brad & Oscar.