R1 of the U-15 tournament kicked off on Sunday with a resounding away win for Selby. Given a fixture against an unknown opponent from our perspective, the young Swans delivered a dominant performance on the first team pitch at Ilkley.
In front of a decent crowd on a sunny autumnal day, Selby hit the ground running. Some good quality phase play from their own half resulted in Sebastian Ward finding space to run in his first try of the day from distance. Nico Usher kicking the first of his conversions.
The game continued to be a good contest but another period of sustained pressure from Selby saw Zack Thornton reach out to score from close in and register his first try of the season; Usher getting the extra two.
The score continued to move along with a brace of tries for Nico Usher and another for Ward leaving Selby 31-5 ahead at half time.
It would have been easy for the team to step off but with the changes being rung throughout the match for Selby, all the players were hungry to make an impression.
A tremendous counter ruck led by George Foster saw Ruben O’Mahony pick up and run in to score under posts with Usher converting. He then followed up with his third try with O’Mahony returning the favour.
A defence splitting break late in the game against a tiring Ilkley back line from Jamie Rawes gave Selby their latest score with Lochlan Pearson supplying the conversion.
A final try for Seb Ward saw him get the second hat trick of the match. Henry Graham, full-time prop and part-time kicker, narrowly missing the conversion with the final kick of the game.
Played in great spirit by both teams, the final score of 55-5 saw Selby advance in to the next round where they will take on Baildon.