Portadown tournament

Cooke was playing at the Portadown tournament today and Ben was on the P5 squad. They had 4 games - Lurgan (won 4-3) Lisburn (drew 2-2) Portadown (lost 0-2) and Banbridge (won 3-0). Unfortunately Lisburn won 2 and drew 2 so they won. Still the boys came a clear second so that's played 4 tournaments won 2 (Bangor and Lisburn), second today and third (equal) at their home tournament at Cooke 2 weeks ago. The mini rugby season now stops, although Ben is looking forward to training at Summer Scrummage before returning in September.

Click here for a slide show of pics from the tournament

Cooke Tournament

Ben was on the squad for the Cooke minirugby tournament today. The weather was fantastic with sun for nearly all the time - several rather red faces, as I among others didn't have any suncream. Still, the important bit was the rugby. Cooke P5s played well, unfortunately being just beaten by Coleraine in the pool stages and so coming second in their pool group. They got into the semifinals but were against Harlequins, who were the form team (and we had hoped to meet in the final). Anyway they lost 2-0 (although this was the best performance in the tournament against Harlequins who went on to win). The boys were bitterly disappointed but they did get a trophy and certificates for being in equal third, so they didn't come away empty handed. Some pics from the games are on this web album.

Cooke Tournament

Ireland victory!

Spent yesterday evening watching Ireland play England at Croke Park - lot of symbolism and a lot of political rubbish in various rugby blogs beforehand, but for all that Ireland came out the winners on two counts. First I was proud that there wasn't any protest over the "English" national anthem (God Save the Queen), and second Ireland showed their true class and whopped the English by 43 to 13. Roll on the World Cup! (and we will wreak revenge on the French who stole the match 2 weeks ago in the last minute)

Ben's minirugby

Ben was playing minirugby today - an away match against Lisburn. It was a close match and ended up 5 all, and the Cooke P5s played better than on their last outing to CIYMS 2 weeks ago. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and I think it was a fair result, although Ben's team need to use the width of the pitch a bit more and then they could maybe utilise their speedy runners (of which Ben is one). Still they are only 8 or 9.