Castleford Academy win 3 Champions Schools Finals!

The local secondary academy is a proud partner school of the club and the Tigers Foundation, and had FOUR teams in action in the competition, claiming finals victory in three of them!

The Champions Schools Finals is the RFL’s flagship schools’ competition, and it made its return as part of rugby league’s summer festival in Newcastle with Magic Weekend, for the first time since early 2020.

It all started on Friday across the day at Kingston Park, the home of Newcastle Thunder.

A star is born! A breath-taking hat-trick from Beau Owens helped Castleford Academy come from behind to claim the Year 8 Girls title. 

With both sides coming into the final on the backs of convincing semi-final victories – Malet Lambert defeating Hexham Middle School 40-14 and Castleford Academy earning their place through a 32-10 victory over St Peter’s – a tight contest was virtually guaranteed. And so it proved.

Malet Lambert made the early running and, despite some heroic Cas’ defence, were eventually rewarded with the opening try through the unstoppable Ellie Mann. 

Castleford then suffered a setback through an injury to Ruby Barley, and everyone at the Tigers hopes she is on the mend as soon as possible, but the team recovered their composure to level the scores at 4-4 through Owens, who scored again as the half time hooter sounded to give her side a hard-fought 8-4 advantage. And it was Owens again who crossed early in the second half to stretch Castleford Academy’s lead to 12-4. 

But Malet Lambert simply would not go away and, despite determined Cas’ defence, sheer persistence from Betsy Clark was rewarded as she zig-zagged her way to the whitewash through a seemingly unbreachable defence.  

At 12-10 it was all to play for, until Olivia Hobbs claimed the winning score, running ran hard at the Malet defence, bravely ducking low and reaching out to place the ball on the try line. 

Castleford Academy’s Year 9 Boys followed up their Year 8 Girls’ success earlier in the day, defeating Archbishop Sentamu Academy in convincing style. 

The Hull school restricted Cas’ to a solitary first half try through Rhys Firth and trailed only 0-6 at the break thanks to a determined rearguard defensive effort. But with the Castleford school dominating field position and possession throughout, Archbishop Sentamu Academy found scoring opportunities in short supply.

Archbishop Sentamu’s stand out player Alfie Ebot Enombi was held over the line, then Spencer George spilled under pressure in the act of scoring. 

That was as good as things got for the Hull school as Hardy, Firth and then Jack Egley rubbed salt into the wounds with further tries to give Castleford Academy a richly deserved success. 

St John Fisher denied Castleford Academy a Champion Schools hat-trick on Friday with in the Year 10 Girls final. 

The Dewsbury school enjoyed a mightily impressive Champion Schools campaign to reach finals day and maintained their excellent form against a Cas’ side who gave everything.

Castleford Academy’s Faith Thorpe scored wide on the left to briefly bring Cas back into contention at 14-4 and did so again in the second half, narrowing the deficit to 18-8 shortly after St John Fisher scored.

But the St John Fisher girls refused to buckle and maintained the 10-point margin all the way to the final hooter.

Castleford Academy and Warrington’s Bridgewater High School brought down one curtain and raised another as they met at St James’s Park, Newcastle, in the last of the RFL’s 2022 Champion Schools finals and opened Super League’s annual Magic Weekend on Saturday afternoon.

The Year 7 final is, of course, named after Steven Mullaney, the schoolboy who in 1986 thrilled spectators and television viewers alike by scoring a superb solo try as Wakefield schools defeated St Helens at Wembley Stadium in the Challenge Cup Final curtain-raiser, but who died in tragic circumstances the following year. Many young players who have represented their school in the Steven Mullaney Memorial Game have gone on to make their mark on both the professional and international stage, including former England and Leeds Rhinos captain Kevin Sinfield.

It was an impressive display put on by the schools from the Rugby League heartlands of Castleford and Warrington. 

It was a day when some of the smaller players, among them Castleford’s Josh Woodhead and Nathan Anaman, and Bridgewater’s Freddie O’Neill and Austin Nicholson, became giants, and when the likes of powerful props Archie Lunn (Castleford Academy) and Lucas Orgill (Bridgewater HS) stood tall and made their own mark on the occasion.

And Lunn it was who set Cas’ on their way to a Champion Schools hat-trick following the success of their Year 8 Girls and Year 9 Boys at Kingston Park the previous day. He would go on the lift the Chev Walker Trophy as player of the match.  

Following a closely contested first quarter, the rampaging prop – the biggest player on the field – opened the scoring from close range. The score remained 4-0 until early in the second half, when Max Richardson crossed for an unconverted try to make it 8-0. Minutes earlier Orgill, Gonzalo Carrera Briegas and Sam Palfreyman had all been denied by tenacious Cas’ defence.  

When Woodhead pounced to make it 12-0 and Jaxson Kesik converted, Bridgewater found themselves 14 points down with a mountain to climb. An Orgill try gave the Warrington school hope and Tobias Birchall’s conversion reduced the arrears to eight points, but the mountain proved too tall and Anaman’s try in the left corner saw Castleford Academy home by 18 points to six. 

All-in-all an astonishing weekend for Castleford Academy, three Champions Schools Finals winning teams representing not only their school proudly, but the whole town of Castleford! Congratulations to all the players who played from the local Academy school, we can’t wait to welcome you all to The Mend-A-Hose Jungle once again very soon!