Leicester Tigers kicked off the 25\/26 PREM Next Gen\u00a0academy U18 league with a 38-31 win over Sale Sharks.<\/p>\n
A dominant first-half display, including four tries to the Tigers, saw them lead by 17 points at halftime before having to hold on against a fast-finishing Sharks side to register the Round 1 victory.<\/p>\n
It took just two minutes for the first points of the season to be registered when wing Christian Gordon-Astbury crossed for the opener. Fly-half Matthew Clatworthy converted the try to make it 7-0.<\/p>\n
Two more tries for \u2018The Cubs\u2019 in quick succession, the first to blindside flanker Fin Charles and the second to scrum-half James Alcock, extend the lead out to 17-0 after only 14 minutes at Loughborough University.<\/p>\n
Sale got on the board, through Cieran Milligan, on the 20-minute mark, and the fly-half converted his own try to cut the deficit to 10 points, 17-7.<\/p>\n
However, Tigers hit back almost immediately when wing Abdul Bah-Bah got over just two minutes later, and Clatworthy converted the try, to make it 24-7.<\/p>\n
The scoreboard attendant had a busy finish to the first half with the Sharks getting a second, to outside centre Christian Smith, which was converted by my Milligan, to make it a ten-point game, 24-14.<\/p>\n
But, Leicester struck again right before the break with a second for Alcock, and fullback Nathaniel Robinson added the extras to make it 31-14 at half-time.<\/p>\n
Alcock had his hat-trick shortly after the teams returned to the field for the second half, crossing in the 44th minute and replacement back Will Loveday extended the lead to 24 points, 38-14, with a successful conversion attempt.<\/p>\n
Sale added three tries in 15 minutes, and one successful conversion from Milligan, to make it a seven-point game, 38-31, and a nervous final ten minutes for the Tigers, who managed to hold on in a brave defensive effort and claim victory.<\/p>\n
TIGERS XV: 15 NATHANIEL ROBINSON, 14 ABDUL BAH-BAH, 13 OLLIE MYALL (vc), 12 JOE HENSTOCK, 11 CHRISTIAN GORDON-ASTBURY, 10 MATTHEW CLATWORTHY, 9\u00a0JAMES ALCOCK;\u00a01 KAJETAN LEWANDOWSKI, 2 ALEX CATCHESIDE, 3 JOE EDMUNDS, 4 MACKINLEY JONES, 5 ETHAN HARRISON, 6 FIN CHARLES, 7 DYLAN CHESSUM (c), 8 OLIVER ROBINSON<\/p>\n
REPLACEMENTS:\u00a016 TOM COURT, 17 ____, 18 CHARLES KINSON, 19 CHARILE LLYOD, 20 LWAZI NXARA, 21 MORGAN BEESE, 22 WILL LOVEDAY, 23 HARRISON BROOKS<\/p>\n
UNDER-17s: LEICESTER TIGERS v SALE SHARKS<\/p>\n
The clubs also met in a U17 fixture at Loughborough University, which the Sharks won 12-26.<\/p>\n
Sale got across the chalk for their first try in the seventh minute and didn\u2019t look back, leading for the rest of the game.<\/p>\n
The first try, to Henry Bates, was converted by Tom Gaffey, to make it 0-7, before Leicester lock Otto Stone scored to make it 5-7 after ten minutes.<\/p>\n
It was more than twenty minutes before the next points, when Sharks hooker Ben Rosenthal got over and Gaffey converted, to take a nine-point lead, 5-14, into the break.<\/p>\n
Tigers centre Josh Ford scored soon after half-time, and fullback Pat McManus Shoebridge converted the try, to cut the deficit to two points, 12-14.<\/p>\n
Two late tries to Sale replacement Tom Males, with one converted by Gaffey, meant the visitors came away from the Midlands with a 14-point, 12-26 win.<\/p>\n
TIGERS XV:\u00a015 PAT MCMANUS SHOEBRIDGE, 14 OLIVER HUTCHINSON, 13 GEORGE ALCOCK, 12 JOSH FORD, 11 SAM MCGUFFIN, 10 RAHM BUTTERWORTH, 9 MORGAN BEESE; 1 JOE WOOD 2 OLIVER BLINKHORN, 3 BAILEY SAUNDERS, 4 TOM STUART JONES, 5 OTTO STONE, 6 IVAN BOYD, 7 LWAZI NXARA, 8 ETHAN RIX<\/p>\n
REPLACEMENTS:\u00a016 IVAN KRUTKOV, 17 WILL COEN, 18 HARIZ NJIE, 19 DOMINIC CHANDLER, 20 TOM MAHONY, 21 TOM RATLEDGE, 22 GEORGE DAVIS, 23 BEN MCMAHON, 24 ZANE NEOL, 25 SAM WOOD<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leicester Tigers kicked off the 25\/26 PREM Next Gen\u00a0academy U18 league with a 38-31 win over Sale Sharks.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71556,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-71555","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}