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The Bermuda Under-10 and Under-12 rugby teams returned to the island with mixed fortunes after participating in the inaugural Cayman/Bermuda Challenge Cup.

The U10s dominated their opposition, while the U12s had a much closer encounter tying their first match and being very unlucky to lose the second by a last minute kick.

The weekend of rugby began on Saturday with Bermuda's U12 side taking on a Cayman representative side in a three-period match.

With the Cayman team significantly outsizing the Bermuda team, the visiting players had their work cut out for them, but, focusing on the inspirational words of captain, Graham Cooke, they rose to the challenge and took the game to Cayman physically. The Bermuda forwards dominated their larger opponents, and some crunching tackles by the backs shut down much of the crash ball strategy adopted by Cayman. In the first period, Bermuda scored three tries to Cayman's one, with Bermuda's tries coming from Ryan Robb, Adam Nicol and Daniel Nash (with Nash, Dillon Page and Alex Price kicking one conversion each). In the second period, heat seemed to be a factor with Cayman scoring two unanswered tries, while the final period was scoreless, with Ben Howland unlucky not to have scored in the corner close to the whistle. The match ended a draw.

Later in the day, the U10 players participated in a round-robin tournament including three teams from Cayman, and Bermuda emerged the undefeated winners. In the first match, Bermuda scored eight unanswered tries by Liam Bird (3), Isaiah Bell-Phillips (2), Mikiel Thomas, Tom Hill and Sam McKitrick. The second match saw tries by Shannon Bothelo (2), Logan Ball, Caleb Evans and Mikiel Thomas lead the team to a 25-0 victory.

Bermuda's dominance was then reiterated in the third game with Bell-Phillips, Hill, Ball, McKitrick, Bird and William Lorimer Turner running in six tries while conceding none.

Sunday's games started with the Bermuda U10 team keen to show that they could repeat the previous day's performance against the Cayman national team. The Bermuda team started fast paced and continued in the same vein until the final whistle with Bermuda running in nine tries, while again preventing Cayman from scoring. This time, Charlie Pilgrim, Sam Brook and Cameron Turnbull got on the score sheet, while Tyler Dickinson was particularly unlucky after being held up over the try line on at least three occasions.

A thrilled U10 head coach Robbie Dickinson said: "The boys were fantastic! Our group of very gifted individual players came together as a team and played a team game to perfection. All the hard work they put in reaped such huge rewards, that they surprised themselves at how good a team they became. The future of Bermuda rugby is in very safe hands."

In the second game of the day, Bermuda's U12 national team took on the Cayman U12 national team.

Cayman scored the first two tries, making it clear that their game strategy was based on getting the ball to one of their bigger players and letting him run. But Bermuda didn't give up, and some particularly hard and effective rucking eventually resulted in Ryan Robb scoring before half time (the conversion made by Alex Price) to make it 7-14.

Early in the second half, Micah Perozzi ran the ball in for Bermuda's second try, but a missed conversion left the score 12-14. Cayman responded with the third try of the day to put them ahead 12-21.

A tremendous show of heart by the Bermuda forwards let Cayman know that the game was far from over. Unanswered tries from Nicol and Graham Cooke (both converted by Dillon Page) put Bermuda ahead 26-21.

Bermuda were then staunch in defense, and having played nearly five minutes of extra time, the Bermuda supporters thought the match was won when Riley MacNeil and Daniel Page combined to make a try saving tackle deep in the Bermuda half. But the referee allowed play to continue, and from a line out Cayman again got the ball to their danger man who scored in the corner to tie the game. The conversion at the whistle ended the game with Cayman winning 26-28.

After the match U12 head coach, Andy Price, said "That was by far the best rugby that I have ever seen played by Bermuda mini rugby players. We could not have asked any more from our players. Each one of them gave it everything and, in my opinion, clearly out played a much bigger opposition. Sometimes the result does not reflect that, but that is rugby, and I couldn't be prouder of the players".[[In-content Ad]]

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