BARLA News

Two more Clubs Apply for 2007/8 CMS Yorkshire League

County Cup entries sent to the District Leagues

The Grainey Super Cup begins this Weekend

Fifth Time Lucky?

BARLA make it Four out of Four in the Skanska Cup to reach the Final

BARLA End the Practice of Permit Players

Two more Clubs Apply for 2007/8 CMS Yorkshire League

Featherstone Lions and Walton have submitted late applications for inclusion in the 2007/8 CMS Yorkshire League.

The pair missed the League?s agm earlier this month but Yorkshire bosses will confirm their inclusion in principle, subject to both being accepted by the Castleford & Featherstone ARL and Wakefield ARL respectively in in accordance with BARLA rules.

Featherstone are currently battling for the summer-based Co-operative Conference National title, and see the Yorkshire competition as an ideal way to nurture home-grown talent.

Walton, similarly, have a strong youth structure and are keen to provide an outlet for those players who do not turn to the professional game. The CMS Yorkshire League kicks off on Saturday September 1. Back to top

County Cup entries sent to the District Leagues

The BARLA Secretary Nigel Hollingsworth has sent the Cumbria, Lancashire and Yorkshire Cup entries out to the District Leagues.

The closing date for the entries is Friday 24th August.

The First round of the County Cups takes place on the 15th September

Steve Manning Back to top

The Grainey Super Cup begins this Weekend

This weekend will see the opening round of The Grainey Super Cup with a double header of games taking place on Saturday 28th July and Sunday the 29th July. The competition which is being held at Leigh Miners ARLFC, Twist Lane, Leigh and is in memory of the victims of the Golborne Pit Disaster and has been played annually for over twenty five years.

The eight sides taking part in the competition are Leigh Miners Rangers, Leigh East, Golborne Parkside, Wigan St Judes, Bank Quay Bulls, Rylands, Rochdale Mayfield and Yorkshire side Bradford Dudley Hill.

The draw has been made which pairs the teams and games as follows:

Saturday 28th July

Leigh East v Bank Quay Bulls Kick Off 1.30pm

Wigan St Judes v Rylands Kick Off 3.00pm

Sunday 29th July

Golborne Parkside v Rochdale Mayfield 1.30pm

Leigh Miners Rangers v Bradford Dudley Hill 3.00pm

The winners of the ties will go through to the semi finals the following Saturday 4th August and the final the following Saturday 11th August.

Steve Manning
BARLA Media Manager & PRO Back to top

Fifth Time Lucky?

Stanley Rangers will know by the end of the week whether they are likely to feature in the National Conference League next season.

The Wakefield outfit have submitted a bid for membership for the fifth successive year and, after having failed for a variety of reasons previously ? ranging from the quality of their first team to the size of their car park, with an inadequate business plan and untidy changing rooms also cited as factors ? will be hoping for better fortune this time.

The NCL Management will conclude its deliberations by the end of May and make its recommendations to existing clubs, who will either gibe Rangers the ?nod? or thumbs down at the AGM in June.

If accepted, Stanley would join a Second Division which currently numbers 12 teams, including Cumbrian sides Askam ? who are applying for re-election ? Egremont Rangers and Millom.

Phil Hodgson ? League Weekly Back to top

BARLA make it Four out of Four in the Skanska Cup to reach the Final

SKANSKA CUP
BARLA 12
GREAT BRITAIN STUDENTS 2

Skanska Cup holders BARLA came from a half time deficit to defeat the Great Britain Students to take their place in the final at the Chris Moyles Stadium, the home of Featherstone Rovers on Wednesday 3rd October. They will once again take on the Great Britain Students who despite this defeat have reached the final on point?s difference from the British Police.

The game was abandoned on 67 minutes by referee Ian McGregor following a serious leg injury to Great Britain Students centre Nick Walker.

The BARLA side had debutants Anthony Houghton and Adam Kirwin at halfback with other newcomers James Foley and Andrew Varley on the bench and all four can be pleased with their efforts.

In a stop start effort were no quarter was given or taken as both sides struggled with ball retention. BARLA had the first scoring opportunity when Kirwin and Houghton?s combined and the latter?s chip over the defence saw the Great Britain Students kick the ball dead as full back Craig Holmes swooped for the ball on 14 minutes.

Four minutes later the Students took the lead as BARLA under 21 captain Mark McKinley kicked a 25 meter for offside. McKinley had the chance to double the lead on 22 minutes but his 35 meter penalty went wide and BARLA ran the ball out of defence.

BARLA went onto the offensive in the second half and winger Danny Smith had a difficult chance but knocked on.
It was nip and tuck until BARLA struck with two converted tries in three minutes.

Andy Dobson who had just come off took a short ball from acting half back and burst through the Students cover and went passed outside to winger Mike Backhouse after drawing the last line of defence. Backhouse still had it all to do but scored in the corner and Holmes added the extras with a magnificent conversion.

From the restart BARLA attacked again and Houghton put centre Lee Maskill through a gap and he sold an audacious dummy to the Students full back to 40 meters to score to the right of the posts.

The Students were chasing the game and BARLA thought they had scored a third try on 64 minutes after a superb back flip pass was taken by Maskill who went in for a second but it was chalked off for a forward pass.

Newly appointed BARLA Head Coach John Fieldhouse said,

?I thought it was a well ground out victory and we had to work very hard for it, I didn?t expect any different. Paul Fletchers a tough cookie and he has been about the scene he knows what coaching is about and when you think about coaching students it?s virtually full time.

?Fletch is coaching them on a regular basis day in day out but not only that they have players who do a lot of training and a bit of learning. Our lads do a lot of work and a bit of training and we brought a few new players in so it was never going to be easy. It was always going to be hard in the first forty minutes to get any pattern of play going.

?They quelled our pattern by their enthusiasm but after that their class shone through and we scored a couple of good tries probably had one or two dubious decisions go against us. Taking nothing away from the students they were very, very good and the BARLA players had to work for what they got and I thought they did very well.

?Great stuff and the break by Andy Dobson, that?s what I put him on, I knew that he would be the game breaker. We just had to get him on an edge were he was going to get the ball in the right areas. Nobodies going to stop Dobbo one on one because he does it week in week out so I was just waiting him, waiting him to put him on at the right time just when the students were tiring a little bit and he was the man who was going to pull something out of the fire.

?I thought there were good performances from a few players. Lee (Maskill) who scored on the other side, he scored a great try and he defended very well, always looked threatening and there were some good performances all-round.
?It?s a tragedy really that the young centre Nick Walker was injured as he had had a great game and not only that he made a tremendous break just to knock four or five players off just to make that break, he bust through the line went through our lad has come back put the tackle in and the player has broken his leg. It?s not the best way to finish a game I just hope sincerely that he?s fine after the injury and can get his career back on track.

?After tonight?s game we are going to have to get back in training and work with the halfback pairing because they are new, not only that we have got a few other positions were players have come in with them having to gel with players who were in the squad from the tour of South Africa.

?We have a fair bit of work to do but don?t take anything away from the students they are big and strong and we will get a hard game again in the final against them. Again I?m glad it?s the students, we don?t want forty, fifty nil wins we want competitive games, and we want competitive games against good players and the students have got good players so those are the type of games that we want to be playing.?

Try scorers Mike Backhouse gave their thoughts on the game,

Mike Backhouse,

?It was a good team performance that put me in for the try so I was happy with the try, my performance and that we managed to grind out a victory really. Andy?s (Dobson) a big strong lad and every time he gets the ball he?s going to hold people up and the balls always there so I just backed him up and managed to put the ball down. It was a good try in the corner but Kez (Craig Holmes) is good with the boot and he put it over to give us a four point cushion.

?The students played well but I think we showed them too much respect and we stood off especially the number six who was running the show for them. Once we got into their faces I think our fitness told and they were flagging a bit towards the second half.

? I think on behalf of our team we wish the player that was injured and saw the game finished a speedy recovery and it was just an unfortunate tackle, he appeared to fall back on his own leg.

?I think it was good playing the students, we have got to learn how they play and we know who their danger men are now and what we have got to do to tighten up our own game now so hopefully it will be a good competitive final against them.?

Lee Maskill,

?We anticipated a tough battle to start off with and that?s what they gave us, an hundred mile an hour game, fast tempo, a good physical game and they delivered and they didn?t let us down. We have only had one training session with the new lads in the squad and for them to come in and do what they did today was superb.

?The first ten minutes everybody seemed a bit panicky a bit over eager but I thought after that they settled down and they started distributing and organising quite well with a good kicking game as well between them.

?Before we went out onto the field John Fieldhouse drilled it into us that defence is our key which was as easy as if they don?t score we can?t lose. We had a very good scrambling defence and we all worked hard in defence and we just kept them to that penalty goal in the first half.

?Dobbo came onto the field with a pair of fresh legs and Dobbo?s an aggressive runner anyway and he just came onto a ball and just burst the line and broke from the halfback as well and a good finish as well from Mike Backhouse.

?We have a call from any restart and we ended up with a good chase to get downfield. During that set we called a move which we had been trying all the game but this time it came off right and I got the pass off Anthony Houghton and I swept through a massive gap. I went to draw the full back but the full back took a ridiculous dummy and it was a bit of a strole in really. I thought I had scored a second try when we caught them again on the back foot with a move between Danny Smith and me. I flicked it to him and he flicked it back to me through the backdoor and it popped straight into my arms but it was ruled out by the far touch judge.

?We are looking forward to playing them in the final and we are looking forward to eighty minutes against them when they will test us and we will test them. I hope that the lad that was injured comes through okay as do all our squad.?

Captain Anthony Broadhead,

?I thought that the students were very enthusiastic, they didn?t have anything to lose and we had a few new lads in and this was just the gelling we needed to get back to with two new half backs in. We had Kevin Brown, John McMullen and Tim Sutcliffe in the centre and Trevor Penrose who takes the ball forward for us out.

?We did go away from the game plan but newcomers will benefit from tonight effort and we can only get better as a unit. I thought we were a bit poor in the first half but however bad I thought we played John said that we did OK. But at the end of the day to play poor and only be down two nil wasn?t a bad thing.

?We worked hard on our scrambling defence Backy (Mike Backhouse) and Danny (Smith) we knew would get back for us and Masky (Lee Maskill) in the centres pulled it out of the bag with a great try saving tackle on their full back when he burst through in the first half.

?Dobbo who has great upper body strength made a great bust through there defence and we know that Backy can finish from anywhere as he?s quite speedy and he did that superbly for the opening try. The try that Masky scored from the dummy, I?ve never seen a dummy like it.

?We knew if we wore them down and got a roll on with the likes of Richard Owen, Scott Woodcock, Kevin Dickens and the new lads Luke Varley and James Folan that the tries would come. The game finished early because of a serious injury to one of the students and on behalf of the team and the management we all hope that he recovers to continue playing the game.

?We now play the Great Britain Students in the final and it isn?t going to be easy, we have had a taste of them now. They have got a few players to come back into their line up but with one more training session for us I think we will all be back into it but I think from my point of view we can beat them. We can beat anybody at this level, any of the students, the services, but it is going to be a battle but I am confident that we are going to come out winners in the final.?

BARLA: 1. Craig Holmes, 2. Danny Smith, 3. Lee Maskill, 4. Matty Danville, 5. Mike Backhouse, 6. Anthony Houghton, 7. Adam Kirwin, 8. Scott Woodcock, 9. Paul Brown, 10. Kevin Dickens, 11. Richard Owen, 12. Jimmy Rogers, 13. Anthony Broadhead, 14. Anthony Atherton, 15. Andy Dobson, 16. Luke Varley, 17. James Foley.
Tries: Backhouse (53), Maskill (56)
Goals: Holmes 2/2

GRET BRITAIN STUDENTS: 1. Matt Gartland, 2. Danny Wilson, 3. Sam Gee, 4. Nick Walker, 5. Bruce Rigby, 6. Nigel Scott, 7. Danny Garside, 8. Glen Osborn, 9. Scott Porteus, 10. Neil Cherryholme, 11. Adam Scott, 12. George Coogan, 13. Mark McKinley, 14. Andy Marsh, 15. Adam Elwell, 16. Kier Wenham Flatt, 17. Scott Lowe.
Goals: McKinley 1/2

Steve Manning
BARLA Media Manager & PRO Back to top

BARLA End the Practice of Permit Players

Following a postal vote which was sent out to all 39 Full Members Leagues BARLA has voted to end the practice of permit players.

Of the 39 leagues 30 responded which saw the new rule agreed by a two thirds majority.

The new ruling stipulates that no player on a professional rugby league contract can play amateur rugby league for any club/team in membership of the Association.

The change has been proposed following concerns that permit players who have been disciplined recently by the Association and have exhausted the BARLA Appeals system have appealed successfully to the RFL Appeals Committee Back to top