Goole U13 were back in action at the weekend hosting a strong Leeds team. The weather had broken from the balmy sun of the previous days and an overcast and wet and windy day meant that handling the ball was never going to be easy although the ground was relatively hard for the time of year.
Goole started well and it was a fine try from TJ Packer who got the first points on the board, after beating a couple of defenders he then showed his pace and ran down the left wing for three quarters of the pitch to take Goole into a 1-0 lead. The teams locked horns with forwards running hard and strong - non stronger than man of the match Billy Vagg - but both defenses held firm for the next ten minutes. Goole did manage a good handling move out to left winger George Pickering who went past the defense and over the try line, but unfortunately also went over the dead ball line before grounding the ball, so the try was disallowed. Moortown then took up the attack and a good handling move out to the right-hand side allowed the Moortown winger to score in the corner 1-1. Moortown were now in the ascendancy and pushed hard on the Goole defense looking like they would score the next try but a long defensive kick downwind from Thomas Franks turned the Moortown defense, George Pickering followed up quickly to put the pressure on and took the ball from the defenders and ran through to score – this time remembering where the dead ball line was taking it 2-1 in Goole’s favour. Ashton Neal did use the wind well with some great tactical kicking putting pressure on Moortown and with the half about to close the Goole backs maybe should have cleared their lines again with a kick but willfully tried to run the ball along the line and knocked on. The Moortown attack were quickly onto this and broke through the center to bring the scores even at 2-2.
Second half was immediately into action. After the Moortown kick went dead from the start a resulting scrum back to the half way saw Thomas Franks break quickly and the back line used quick hands to get the ball to winger George Pickering who broke through 3 tackles before stepping inside the last defender to go over and put Goole back in the lead 3-2. Moortown again came straight back after another scrambled ball around the Goole players was picked up to take the scores level again and with confidence restored went over yet again to tip the scales back their way 3-4. Goole still battled harder and put everything on the line to get back into the game. With some unfortunate injuries and the hard ground taking its toll Goole did hold back the now frequent Moortown attacks to come back with a superb handling move taking the ball across the pitch both ways before Ben Cooper blasted his way over in the left corner to level the scores. With very little time left on the clock Goole ripped the ball from a Moortown defender then put in a good passing move along the line and with only a few feet of space on the touch line, produced some outstanding offloading to allow Joe Green to crash through to what looked like the winning try. With the kick off being the last play of the game the ball was put deep into the Goole half and the Moortown team ran at the Goole defense who kicked looking for the win - only to be denied by a charge down which was dropped on by a Moortown player and the game ended level at 5-5.
A great game to watch by all and played in the right spirit with coaches and spectators alike enjoying the skills and spirit in which the game was played – well done to both teams and again lots of lessons to learn and hopefully a return game later in the season.