The Lancashire U14s Development 10s Festival is held every year with all teams from across the county invited. The one stipulation being the non-inclusion of County Development or County Squad players. Sadly this resulted in only 7 clubs entering this year (Aldwinians withdrawing due to illness and injury).
Ormskirk u14s travelled without their 4 county development squad players and their 2 county players - a squad of 16 contained eight new players this season and two in their second season at Ormskirk. To do so well against teams either with a larger overall squad, or those not impacted by county players, was a testament to the performances of a squad with a high level of character and team spirit.
Coming second in Pool B after beating Burnley 24-5, with tries from Chris Nicholson who also added two conversions, George Lightfoot 2, Jonny Dunn and a first for the club from Simon Brazier and losing 31-0 to Preston (immediately after playing Burnley on what can only be described as a mud bath), put them into a semi-final against a strong Waterloo squad. The 25-0 defeat flattered the Merseysiders as the Ormskirk lads played with great heart and fielded the whole squad, which was the main objective of the day - to give everyone the same pitch time. A third place play-off againt Preston was a great spectacle, as the two visibily tiring teams slugged it out in an end-to-end battle. Preston led 5-0 at half time, exploiting the only missed tackle of the half. Ormskirk had to score early, so when Aaron Cheung caught the kick off and outstripped the defence to touch down superbly, the underdogs were in the ascendency. Unfortunately, the remainder of the game was very even until a timely kick ahead from the Preston fly half saw three Ormskirk forwards marking two speedy backs and they scored the winning try to leave Ormskirk a very creditable 4th.
Photo of Squad: Rear - Dan Price, Sam Higgins, Matthew Sloyan, Jack Morris-Holland, George Lightfoot, Chris Nicholson, Aaron Cheung, Simon Brazier, Michael Bradbury, Steve Maloney. Front - Ben Watherston, Marc Tasker, Jonny Ford, Jonny Dunn, Matthew Swords
