Another busy Sunday for the Minis with teams attending the Kirkby Lonsdale Festival, Manchester Festival and entertaining Blackburn at home. All Junior teams were also in action.
The Under 7s continued their fantastic start to the season with great turnout at the Kirkby Lonsdale festival and hosting Blackburn at home.
The Under U8s split their squad again, sending 13 players travelling to the festival at Kirby Lonsdale and 8 players taking on Blackburn at home. The new minis pitch, with improved drainage, performed well and despite a weekend of heavy rain conditions underfoot were good as Hoppers took on Blackburn showing a great deal of flair and teamwork creating scoring chances and defending well. New members of the squad are performing excellently with the support of their more experienced team members who are welcoming them into the team with great respect and friendship. It is heart warming to see these core principles being displayed in such a young squad and very promising for the future. Both teams on the day were evenly matched and great fun was had by all. Well done especially to our player of the week, Joseph who delighted us with his determination and commitment. The Under 8s also had a fantastic festival experience at Kirkby Lonsdale. 12 kids showed off their skills with plenty of games, lots of smiles and ice creams.
The Under 9s enjoyed sunshine and tough opposition at Kirkby’s festival. With the team still finding their way with contact rugby, they came into their own late on but showed true Hoppers spirit and never gave up.
The Under 10s sent a team to the Kirkby Lonsdale festival and had a great time, winning their first three matches 4-2, 8-0 & 4-0, and then finished the festival with a nail biting, tough, well matched game against the hosts that finished 4-4.
The Under 12s attended the Manchester Festival incorporating the Landrover Cup and found themselves in a tightly contested group. Hoppers were slow off the mark, the first three games were all close affairs losing one and drawing the other two. The team finally got into their stride in the last group game running out comfortable winners over Broughton Park. In their play off game, Hoopers started quicker than Wilmslow but were hanging on at the end to record a 3-2 win.
The Under 16s had a home game against Bury. After a tight first half Hoppers pulled away in the second period to run out winners 46-14. Some good performances from the squad highlighting the options open to the Coaches for upcoming games.
The Colts made the longish journey to Newcastle Under Lyme and despite a slow start put in their best performance of the season so far. Despite losing 22-5 there were many positives to take from the game, although the singing needs to be improved for the next coach trip!
