After a long preseason, starting in mid-July and including 2 successful home and away wins against some strong Sheffield RUFC talent, the Senior Academy we’re ready to Kick Off their 24/25 season campaign away against a 30 player Selby squad… clearly not having player numbers on the travelling teams side, it was going to be a tall order to maintain composure throughout the game. Thankfully the lads had this covered due to their intense fitness sessions through preseason delivered by Coach Valente “I’m really impressed with how fit all the lads are” which is a great statement heading into the season.

The game started with Sandal receiving the kick off and returning the ball in hand well, taking an early, but unconverted lead, 0-5. After a short period of defence against the host team, Sandal regained possession and managed to quickly catch them off guard and this time gaining the kick conversion, 0-12.

At this point, the host decided to turn up the tempo and challenge, knocking the travellers backwards and maintaining possession through some good phases of play, leading them to score twice levelling the scores just before half time at 12-12.

Into the team huddles and Selby on the front foot, the Sandal team would have to dig deep to put off the whole new Selby team change and fresh legs after the interlude.

Sandal started the second half well, applying pressure immediately after the Kick Off, and keeping the opposition deep in their own half, managing to turn the ball over and push themselves up the score board, 12-19. At this point Sandal started to exercise their dominance and with continued pressure in defence and good structure in attack, capitalising on their preseason efforts they managed to cross the line several times in comparison to Selby’s hard fought for one opportunity of the half.

Final score Selby 19-43 Sandal.

The whole squad has worked very hard over preseason and their efforts have been shown, there’s a very promising side with the seniors and further quality to come through the Junior Academy working equally as hard through preseason… the future looks very bright for the whole Academy.

A special thanks to the whole coaching staff for their preseason efforts as well getting the lads in shape both physically and structurally for this season… thank you Andy, Andy, Ben, Josh, Mark, Matt and Nick.

REH