A Fantastic Competition with some excellent wheelchair rugby on display.
Allied Mobility Wheelchair Rugby: Fours Division One.
With Christmas and New Year fading into memories wheelchair rugby was back on the road with snow warnings exciting some (mainly me). Division One rolled into Fenton Manor for their second tournament to see if anyone could threaten Cheltenham Tigers unbeaten start.
With eight teams in Division One the teams are divided into two pools for the Saturday games. Pool A consisting of Cheltenham Tigers, West Coast Heat, North East Udders and LT Swifts. Pool B; RGC, West Coast Burn, London Crusaders and West Country Hawks. For the second tournament a lot of teams had bolstered their team sheets with new players and different imports.
Imports making a difference
The morning games followed the rankings from tournament one with easy wins for Tigers, Heat, RGC, Burn. The afternoon games however were a lot tighter. West Country Hawks new Polish import Lukasz Rekawiecki provided a strong attack allowing Hawks to come within 5 tries of beating Burn.
Close games
The closest game of the day was that between Swifts and Udders. Swifts had drafted in a newly retired Jamie Stead to help with their line up as unfortunately they had no high point players. The first quarter in which Udders pulled a to try lead helped carry them through with the game finishing an extremely tight Udders 36 Swifts 35. In a try scoring quirk only Millie Partridge and Josh Tudge scored Udders tries. The last two games of the day Burn verses RGC and Crusaders verses Hawks were tight and only really in the last quarter did RGC and Hawks pull away, both teams imports making the extra difference.
With the games complete and no snow had fallen teams retired to their hotels in preparation of the crossover games on Sunday.
Day two
Sunday started rather dark and cold for some with a surprise power cut for the officials and those staying at the Holiday Inn, a drawback to the snow that had landed. This was the first time that Maryka Jordaan had seen snow, having travelled to Division One from South Africa to gain some more experience. The power cut was quickly rectified (thankfully as there were wheelchair users on the third floor) and almost all managed to make their way back to Fenton, apart from a snowed in Harri Jenkins (who eventually made it for the last games). Sunday’s early games saw the bottom two in the pools face each other. Hawks and Crusaders beating Swifts and Udders respectively. This meant that all four teams had rematches from yesterday, Swifts versus Udders for 7th and 8th and Hawks versus Crusaders for 5th and 6th .
Semi-finals
The semi-finals saw Burns sister team Heat take on RGC, Heat were a team enjoying the return of Daniel Kellett and the only team in which every player was a try scorer over the weekend. This ability for everyone to score allowed Heat to do what Burn couldn’t beating RGC although only by two try’s. The second semi-final saw Burn take on still unbeaten Tigers and that unbeaten run continued. Burn, with the addition of Oliver Wrightman who shared the try scoring with Danny Dawoud, came close but in the end six try’s separated them. This led to a similar situation with 3rd/4th playoff being a rematch of Burn versus RGC and the final between Heat and Tigers.
Presentations
During the lunchbreak there was a presentation to Paul Shaw coach of Cheltenham Tigers for his long service in the game and to mark his stepping down as GB coach. With everyone present it was also decided to do the Best-in-Class awards as well. This was a nice change having almost everyone present (Harri was still stuck in snow).
Best in Class 0.5 – Bruno Carrico West Country Hawks
Best in Class 1.0 – Daniel Kellett West Coast Heat
Best in Class 1.5 – Gemma Lumsdiane RGC
Best in Class 2.0 – Harri Jenkins West Coast Burn
Best in Class 2.5 – Daniel Dawoud West Coast Burn
Best in Class 3.0 – Hannah Bucys West Coast Heat
Best in Class 3.5 – Millie Partridge North East Bulls Udders
Most Valuable Player – Lukasz Rekawiecki
Best Official – Maryka Jordaan
Placement games
In a repeat of their earlier game 7th and 8th was a battle between Udders and Swifts. Jamie Stead sat out this match which meant that Udders with Millie and Josh spearheaded the attack, this time others in Udders scored allowing for a comfortable 48 – 29 Udders win.
5th and 6th placement game saw Hawks again face Crusaders. The first quarter finished tied as the teams tried to find the right combination. Over the next two quarters Hawks managed to break Crusaders adding six more try’s which was how the game finished. This was despite Crusaders Matt Hignett trying to play through a chest infection and the team also losing Imogen Steele to a badly bruised finger.
Top 4 placings.
The last two games saw the two teams from West Coast Crash take on the two top teams from tournament one RGC and Tigers. These were both matches that had taken place during the pool game and seeming the previous repeats had the same winners it would be interesting if these games would buck that trend. Unfortunately, this would not be the case with RGC again being victorious although Burn led the first two quarters before RGC levelled in quarter three and gained another three try’s in the last quarter. In the final which was live streamed with a scoreboard for the first time Heat stayed with Tigers through the first half however Tigers ran rampant in the second half with both teams varying their line ups. It seems that after two tournaments Tigers remain unbeaten.
Tom Denmead from winning team Tigers summed up the tournament nicely
“The standard across all teams certainly went up from the first Division One weekend. The new imports in Lukasz Rekawiecki and Jop van der Lann, along with the addition of Jamie Stead, Dan Kellett, George Rogers and Ollie Wrightman definitely contributed to this improvement”
Naughty teams and players!
I have had the opportunity to again collate the stats from Division One and as well as Tigers winning the weekend they also topped out on both the team penalty bin visits on 24, with Tyler from Tigers sharing naughtiest player award with Lukasz from Hawks! Dan Kellett gets a shout out for the four visits he paid to the bin in the final making his total an impressive eight. As a result of his antics Heat are no longer the team sent to the penalty bin the least, this tournament that award goes to Swifts.
Team standings on penalty bin visits
Worst team – Cheltenham Tigers! With 24 visits
Hawks and RGC with 16
Burn 13
Heat 12
Udders 9
Crusaders 7
Swifts 5
Most Visits to the bin!
Lukasz (Hawks) and Tyler (Tigers) on 12!!!!
Jop (RGC) 9
Dan Kellett (Heat) 8
Tom Denmead added in relation to being the most penalised team:
“We wanted to keep the officials busy! As we had no other high pointers to call upon, I think Tyler may have been wanting a break too”
With that Tyler and Tigers have earned a break until March 1st and 2nd when the final Division One tournament of the season heads to Sunderland. Hopefully with warmer temperatures it will be interesting to see if anyone can stop Tigers remaining unbeaten for the entire season.
Written by Hannah Boyle: GBWR Official and player from the West Country hawks.
