Wheelchair Bank Holiday Match Report
June 5, 2023This was always going to be a busy weekend for the team with an away game at Rochdale Hornets on the Saturday, followed by a home fixture against Mersey Storm.
The game at Rochdale went ahead as planned, with a warm welcome from Rochdale.
The Bulls lead 24 – 0 at half time after 2 tries from George Herd and 1 each from Sam Stebbings and Scott Pyrah. Stewart Walker successfully converted all 4.
The first ten minutes of the second half the Bulls were down to 4 players on the pitch, after the sending off of George Herd in the 39th minute. This let Rochdale in to score their first try but did not successfully convert.
Once back to a full squad the Bulls took charge again with Scott Pyrah scoring 3 further tries and Stephen Potter scoring his first try. (his celebration dance was delightful). Stewart successfully converted 2 of the tries with Scott Pyrah adding a further one.
The final score was Rochdale 10, Bradford Bulls 44.
This is our second win of the season.
Sundays game should have been a home fixture against Mersey Storm, however, they forfeited the game midweek, resulting in Bradford Bulls being awarded a 24 – 0 win. This became our 3rd league win of the season.
Sundays game had been arranged in Memory of Martin Moran, who recently died from MND. And we were expecting his widow Helen and some of her family and friends to attend. An appeal went out to the Wheelchair Rugby community, and Warrington Wolves agreed to stand in and play a development game. Some others were expected but the good weather and Bank Holidays weekend was probably more of an attraction.
The game began with a respectful minutes silence, followed by Helen Moran presenting the game ball to the Officials. Our thanks to the Officials Karli Wilkinson and Kim Abel for overseeing this for us.
The game against Warrington was always going to be a challenge with a number of their Super League squad included in the team. At half time we had scored only 16 points and we were being tested with Warrington at 28. The scorers in the first half were Scott Pyrah x 2, Logan Lamont, with 1 conversion from Stewart Walker and Scott.
With this, we decided to play our secret weapon, Keiron Johnson in the second half. He led the team around the pitch, dictated plays, with 5 minutes to go we needed to score 2 tries to win, and we did. Keirons final tally for the second half was 7 x tries, 2 x drop goals 4 x conversions a whopping total of 38 points in 40m minutes. The final score was Bradford 54, Warring 46. Although this doesn’t count to our league position, the excitement generated by the speed and skill shown in the second half by the Bulls team was amazing.
If that was not enough, we then played a 60 min development game, allowing all the team who had not played in the Warrington game to get some more game time. This allowed our newest player Isabelle Wright to play alongside her brother Nathaniel and Dad Richard. Truly a family affair. This game was won 18 – 12 with 3 x tries from Jonathan Bairstow and 1 from Nathaniel Wright. 1 was converted
A collection for MND was made at the game raising £174.98 which was given to Helen Moran to donate to the charity of her choice.
Our thanks to Kim Abel and Karli Wilkinson for their contribution to an entertaining first game.
Extra thanks to Karli Wilkinson for staying for the second game.
