St Ambrose Seal Victory in Floodlit Cup Final
St Ambrose College have been crowned Floodlit Cup Champions after seeing off Wirral Grammar School by 15 points to 5.
The final took place at Lightfoot Green on the Wednesday evening, with both sides coming in to the game having put in stunning performances throughout the tournament.
Although Wirral opened the scoring through Lucas Titherington, St Ambrose kicked in to gear in the second half to come from behind.
Two second half tries from Connor Doherty helped seal the victory in the 26th year of the tournament, before his side were presented with the trophy in the clubhouse.
After a strong scrum from Wirral, fly-half Ben Thomas was able to find Titherington who barraged through the St Ambrose defence to touch down after six minutes. Will Tyrer’s conversion flew wide.
Despite an entertaining game of rugby, it took until the closing moments of the first half for the next score, which came from a Joe Rispin penalty after Wirral failed to clear at the ruck.
After building slowly in the first period, St Ambrose came out quickly after the break, and Connor Doherty scored his first try of the night after kicking through a gap in the defence before pouncing on it to touch down.
Moments later St Ambrose took the chance to extend their lead from the tee, but an impressive 30 metre effort from Rispin rattled the post.
As Wirral looked to get back in to the lead, St Ambrose put in a great defensive shift before the forwards helped carry Connor Doherty over the try-line for his second of the game. Tom Jones stepped up to the tee, and converted well from 20 metres.
With five minutes remaining Wirral looked to make a stunning come back, but St Ambrose’s resilience paid dividends, seeing out the the remaining minutes before the referee blew the final whistle.
Scrum-half Tom Walsh put in a man-of-the-match performance to inspire his team to victory, but despite making a number of impressive breaks, was unable to score the try his performance deserved.
Match report and photographs by George Hartrey.
