Old Brods U17’s v Hull Ionians U17’s

Old Brod’s Junior Colts travelled to Hull Ionians on Sunday with hopes of another victory from this young side. The previous encounter at Woodhead was a close game which the Brods lads managed to win with a strong finish and at times this looked like it could be a repeat performance.
Playing on Hull Ionians first team pitch conditions were perfect and Hull started strongly taking the game to Brods and testing the well drilled defence of the Hipperholme boys. Any possession that Brods got was quickly given away by silly mistakes and they found themselves with their backs to the wall far too many times. After soaking up the pressure for 20 minutes Hull eventually broke through allowing their strong right winger an easy try in the corner. The conversion was not made and the pressure on the Brods team continued after the restart. Once again Ionians broke through on the right wing and the chip and chase, which looked to be knocked on by the Brods’ vocal support, was deemed by the referee to have come off the player’s knee. Again the conversion was wide and Ionians went into the half time break with a 10-0 lead.
The Brods coach Gary Wilson read the riot act at half time as the pace and commitment that we expect from this team was not evident in the first half. This obviously had the desired effect as Brods started the second half with much more purpose and Fly-Half Chris Bell started to put some moves together and created some space for the pacy back line. This showed some weaknesses in the Ionians defence and eventually allowed Full Back Tyler Nicholson to touch down under the posts, Chris Bell made no mistake with the conversion and Brod’s were back in the game at 10-7. The Hull lads worked their way back up the field and again tested the Brods defence which held out for some time until Chris Bell was just unable to stop their tall second row from reaching out and touching the ball down on the whitewash. The conversion was good and put Ionians into a 17-7 lead. The pressure continued on the Brods until Adam Parkinson intercepted a pass on their 22 and sprinted the length of the field to score under the posts and bring Brods back to within 3 points. There was insufficient time left for the Brods lads to score again and the match ended 17-14 to Ionians with the Brods knowing that their poor first half had cost them the game.