Swarm end season with Wales trip

The Swarm team and the Celtic Barbarians line-up after their end of season encounter in Wales.

The Rochdale Swarm brought the curtain down on another successful season with a trip to South Wales to play the Celtic Crusaders supporters' team, the Celtic Barbarians.

The Hornets Supporters team made the long trip down to Bridgend on the Saturday morning to take in the Wales vs England Rugby League International, which was a warm up game for the forthcoming Four Nations competition.

After the game The Barbarians laid on a welcome party for the Swarm. The Rochdale outfit partied long into the night; a big mistake with a game at noon the following day!

The match itself was a cracking affair with both teams playing some fantastic rugby. The Celts opened the scoring after some superb footwork by their star fullback. The Swarm, not to be outdone, replied in kind through Pete Marland, who broke from well inside his own half to race over for the equalising try, converted by Adam Bates.

The teams then exchange scores and again the Celtic full back and the Swarm's Marland crossing the whitewash, with Bates again adding the two.

Into the second quarter the Swarm took the lead after some fine approach work by the three quarter line, which saw Mat Fallows and John Shelmedine going close before Marland completed his hat trick with Bates slotting over the conversion.

The effects of the night before started to show as the Barbarians first equalised then took the lead with the Swarm players waiting for the half time whistle, which came with the score at 24-18 to the Welsh outfit.

The Swarm went into the second half re-focused but couldn't find a way through the Celtic defence, but by equal measure they held their own line firm.

The stalemate was finally broken when the Welsh side were able to breech the Swarm line with 15 minutes to go after a length of the field break which saw the defensive Tag of the day from the Swarms Matty Gormley who tracked the attacker to Tag him on the try line. But Gormley's efforts were in vain as from the resulting play the Barbarians shipped the ball wide and crossed in the corner.

This signalled the end to the Swarm's resistance as the Barbarians crossed for three more tries to take the final score 46-18.

The man of the match award went to Pete Marland for his fine display in attack and defence. There were also special mentions to the quartet of girls for the Swarm, namely mother and daughter Gaynor and Kelly Ramsbottom and aunt and niece Maria and Emily Wynn.

Although technically in the off season the Swarm are currently taking part in a winter Touch Rugby Competition in Huddersfield. The Swarm are also taking part in Master Rugby League in November (over 35`s) and will be hosting a Tag festival for Rugby League Trusts at the end of November, so it's almost business as normal for the Hornets fans.

The Swarm will also shortly be announcing details for next Year's International Tag Festival after the huge success of this year's event.