Honours shared at Junior Nationals

The 2022 Junior Nationals saw the respective titles shared across four different Regions.

Growth of Junior Touch was reflected by having competitions in Boys 14, Girls 14, Girls 17, Girls 19 and Boys 17/19 categories, with 18 teams in all heading to the University of Nottingham’s Riverside Sports Complex.

The biggest single category was the Boys 14, with the South East and West Wildcats both having two teams, and the North West and Midland Tigers one each. Only the North West went through the pool stages unbeaten, with the West Wildcats Orange close behind with four wins from their five matches.

This put those two teams into the final, and while the North West took a 4-2 lead into the break, the Wildcats Orange team battled back in the second half to tie things up at 6-6 with six minutes to play and then into extra time. Then with the first attack of the additional two minutes the Wildcats Orange hit the front for the first time, Theo Oxford sliding over for the try, and when the North West turned the ball over the Wildcats held out until the hooter.

The Girls 14 competition was a three-way round-robin between West Wildcats, South East Sharks and South East Taipans, with the teams playing each other twice. The Wildcats dominated from the first game to the last, scoring a whopping 58 tries and conceding just five to record a perfect six wins from six.

There were two teams in both the Girls 17 and Girls 19 categories, who played a mixture of friendly games against the teams from the other category and three games against the other team in their own category.

In the Girls 17 category the best-of-three went down to the final game, South East Taipans and West Wildcats recording a win apiece in the opening pair of clashes. The first half was as tight and tense as might be imagined, with no tries being scored. But when Iris Nasir scored in the first attack of the second half, shortly followed over the line by Lana Tuite, it put the Taipans firmly onto the front foot and on their way to a 4-2 win which secured the title.

Meanwhile the Girls 19 title was decided in the first two matches as the North West beat Midland Tigers 6-2 and 9-4, making the 3-3 result in the third game a dead rubber.

The Boys 17/19 had four Boys 17 teams and one Boys 19 team, who played each other in a round-robin pool before the Boys 17 teams had placing matches. The North West B17 and Midland Tigers B17 were the two dominant teams, with four wins and three wins respectively to put them into the final.

But as with the Boys 14s, it was the team which finished second in the pool who took home the title. The Midlands scored first, but they were not able to shake the North West off in the first half, who kept on pegging the Tigers back.

It was a similar story in the second half, too, and with three minutes to play the teams were tied at 7-7. But Ollie Simon went over for two tries in as many minutes to take the Tigers clear, and the match finished at 9-7.