Fleetwood’s U17 Junior Colts travelled to Wirral looking to avenge the defeat earlier in the season. Fleet’ started brightly and took the game to their hosts. The impressive James Cameron led from the front with some excellent work in the rucks supported by Henry Turner and James Evans. The cold, wet and windy conditions dictated that this was going to be a forwards game even though Wirral, with the wind behind them insisted in kicking away possession. Joel Reynolds, making a welcome return after injury, tried to inject some attacking pace into the backs by releasing fellow centre Kris Phillips but he was well marshalled by the home defence. Finally the deadlock was broken when a Wirral kick from halfway was not dealt with and they hacked the ball on to score on the right. Half time 5 – 0. The second half again saw Fleetwood continue to press. Prop Jack Foden played his best game this season so far and each time he picked up the ball from the loose saw ground gained. But Fleet’ fell foul of a combination of tactical naivety and sheer bad luck as again Wirral scored from a kick and chase along the soaked pitch. This was compounded by another similar score a few minutes later. The character of this team though shone through in face of this adversity and they hit back in fine style. No8 Adam Dawson made the ground, quick ball through the hands saw Reynolds evade 2 tackles and when he appeared to have been stopped just short of the line, managed to twist in the tackle and crash over to score. Tom Evans converted. 15 – 7. Wirral did not want this lead to slip and when their centre intercepted a wayward pass and burst through the Fleet’ defence, all seemed lost but for a fantastic last ditch tap tackle by Full back Tom Speed. The visitors heeded this warning and kept the ball tight, continually winning the battle in the rucks and mauls. Finally in what turned out to be the last play of the game Flanker Danny Maher broke from 8m out to bash his way through to score. The final conversion was blown just wide of the posts to end a very good match 15 – 12 to Wirral. Next week sees Fleetwood entertain Glossop in the first round of the Lancashire Colts Cup.
Fleetwood Squad: Birks, Cameron, Cowie, Dawson, J Evans, T Evans, Hird, Foden, Maddern, Maher, Phillips, Railton, Reynolds, Riley, Ruddlesdin, Speed, Teale, Turner, Walters, Webster, White.
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