Some of Monmouth Rugby Club's younger players travelled to Minehead at the end of April for the Leicester Tigers Challenge Rugby Festival. Monmouth's Under 9 and Under 8 sides were crowned champions, a second Under 8 team won the shield for their age group, the Under 11s won the shield and the Under 7s made it to the semi-finals. Monmouth U8s sent three teams. The U8's category had 16 teams from all over the country and the winning U8 team was Finley Sheppard, Tom Stentiford, Sam Brennan, Fergus Reed, Jack Gadd, Gus Carini-Roberts and Harry Fernandez-Ford. The team won all six games in the competition to be crowned champions. The U11s beat Lisburn 2nds 20-0 in their first game, drew 5-5 with Clifton in their second game and lost to the eventual undefeated winners of the tournament Droitwich 15-0. In the Plate semi-final, the Lions beat Ynysybwl 25-0 before taking on Winchester in the Plate final. The lions produced their most complete performance and took their 'aggressive defence' to another level. Adam Davies scored two tries as Monmouth ran out 20-0 winners. Two U7s Warriors teams played outstanding rugby despite the terrible weather on Saturday, winning all six of their matches against teams from Minehead, Teignmouth and Winchester. The combination of well rehearsed team work, gritty and organised defending and many fantastic tries enabled both teams to reach the semi finals on Sunday with ease and play for the cup. The results for both teams didn't quite go their way on the second day, but both the Monmouth U7s teams played a very competitive runners-up match which ended in a draw and third place with medals for all. The U9s Sharks had a point to prove after finishing runners-up in the tournaments at Monmouth and Caldicot. They got into their stride quickly with a 30-5 win over the hosts Minehead Barbarians. They followed this with a hard fought 15-5 win over Marlow RFC and topped the group by comfortably beating the Marlow 4th team 30-5. Topping the group, the Sharks entered the cup competition. The semi-final against Welsh rivals Beddau RFC was a physical contest and resulted in a 10-0 win for the Sharks. The final was an epic affair against Winchester RFC. The Monmouth boys strove for physical dominance from the outset with an immense defensive effort led from the front by hard tackling captain Mikey Nixon, and ran out 10-0 winners.
Junior rugby success at challenge
Tuesday 13th May 2014 10:00 pm
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