Hunter Hall welcomed 8 local schools to participate in the U11 World Cup Tag Rugby event as the Rugby World Cup enters the knockout phase. Schools who joined us included Clifton, Appleby, Kirkby Stephen, Long Marton, Morland, Brough, Calthwaite and High Hesket. Each school was given a nation to represent: Hunter Hall B drew England, while the A team drew Western Samoa.
The B team acquitted themselves well losing two, before finishing strongly with two wins. Sam captained the World Cup Tag Rugby team superbly and ensured a free-flowing brand of rugby was played. Hunter Hall mis-passes often bamboozled opponents; on occasion, Sam timed his run superbly to hit the gap leaving two defenders to bump into each other! Evie grabbed a couple of length-of the-pitch tries while Hugo was a whirling dervish in defence. The A team went unbeaten all afternoon but had to work hard for this accolade. A narrow early win over Long Marton, but then Appleby saw them make some basic handling errors. Regardless of this, their attacking prowess was still too much for the visiting schools to handle. The team passed the ball brilliantly and ran some impressive mis-pass moves involving superb dummy runs. As they progressed to face the two other unbeaten teams (Morland & Clifton) they knew they would need to raise their game. Raise it they did! Loops and dummy runs were well utilised by the A team in their 8-6 win over Morland. They then took on Clifton in the final game of the afternoon. Clifton was made up of some exceptionally speedy runners, and Hunter Hall needed to tag with real venom. With the defence performing so well, the Clifton chargers started to become frustrated- with our attacks constantly stretching the Clifton defence, the team finished the afternoon 8-7 winners.
A great afternoon of Wolrd Cup Tag Rugby was enjoyed by all: Western Samoa proving to be the team to beat!