Swarm lose in final

Rochdale Swarm at Odsal Stadium Bradford in the latest of the RFL Summer Tag Rugby League Festival

The Rochdale Swarm graced the hallowed turf of Odsal Bradford in the latest of the RFL Summer Tag Rugby League Festival Events.

The Swarm once again played some fantastic Rugby but lost in the final to a youthful Queensbury ARLFC side.

The opening fixture saw the Swarm play the Queensbury MAD Taggers who first took up Tag Rugby League at the Swarm's Festival two weeks previous. The lack of experience from the Bradford based side showed as the Swarm ran out easy victors with captain Scott Manock and Adam Bates leading the way for the Rochdale side.

The next opponent for the Swarm was Huddersfield Midgets, a team of mainly Huddersfield Giants supporters. Again the Swarm proved too much for another relative new comer to Tag Rugby League and ran out fairly comfortable winners with new signings Adam Lord and Gavin Clough impressing alongside Tag Rugby veterans Steve Mason and Ste Gormley.

The final match of the group stages saw the Swarm take on old rivals the Wakefield City Webcats. In what proved to be a very close game the Rochdale based team just pipped the Yorkshire men 5-4, thanks mainly to the efforts of Emily Wynn who scored a brace of tries which qualified for two female try bonus points which proved to be the difference between the teams. Victory for the Swarm meant they had won their group and would play the Queensbury U18`s in the final.

The final saw the Swarm take any early lead thanks to the efforts of John Shelmedine who was on the end of some fine handling scoring in the corner of the vast Odsal bowl.

The Queensbury side rallied drawing level, but the Swarm again pulled in front thanks to a superb break and score by Adam Lord after some fine approach work by Dave Tyson. Unfortunately Lord pulled a leg muscle in the sprint for the line and the Swarm were further depleted when they lost their Captain Scott Manock to a back injury.

Down to just one substitute and up against a very youthful outfit the Swarm just didn't have enough in the tank to take the game and for the fourth time this season finished as runners up.

The Swarm are now preparing for their next run out which is another festival on the 27 June at Firgrove, Milnrow. The Rochdale based Tag team are keen to attract new players as they look to expand and anyone wanting to have a try at this non-contact version of Rugby League can come along to swarm Training on Tuesday Nights at 7pm at Firgrove, Milnrow.