Swarm reach first ever final

The Swarm team at Leeds.

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The Rochdale Swarm reached their first ever final in their short history last Sunday in a Festival Competition which was part of the build up to the Leeds Rhino`s Verses Manly Sea Eagles World Club Challenge fixture.

The Swarm went over to Leeds in good spirits with all the players looking forward to getting on the pitch again to play in The World Club Challenge Festival which was played at the palatial Leeds Rugby League Academy, training ground of the Leeds Rhinos.

The Swarm entered two sides into the competition, which also acted as a testing ground for the new Tag Rugby League rules which now make the game absolutely non-contact.

The first round of fixtures saw the Swarm face Hull with the Swarm "A" up against the Wakefield City Webcats.

The match against Hull saw the Swarm push one of the Tag Leagues best teams all the way and only confusion over the new rules saw the game slip away to a narrow 6-5 defeat.

The "A" team took on a highy experienced Wakefield side and were no match for the Yorkshire outfit and lost quite heavily.

Coach Dave Ramsbottom then re-jigged the two teams to give the "A" team a couple more experienced players which worked well as the "A" team then took on the Hull side and although they still lost they put up a very creditable show.

The first string of the Swarm then took on the Wakefield side and put in a superb performance to take the game fairly easily with Mark Thomas of the Swarm being the stand out player.

The next fixture had the two Swarm teams facing each other in what turned out to be a very close affair with the final score of 7-6 to the Swarms senior outfit, though Chris Wynn, leading the "A" team, nearly claimed the draw.

This meant that the final of the competition was the Rochdale Swarm versus the Hull FC Irregulars, with the Swarms "A" team taking on Wakefield for third and fourth place.

The final went along the same lines as the first Swarm-Hull fixture from the first match with the Rochdale team just not able to get on top of the Humberside outfit despite the best efforts of Adam Bates and Ziggy Ahmed in attack and Allan Osbadeston and Dave Tyson in Defence.

Coach Ramsbottom was elated with the teams' efforts when up until last year the majority of the team had never played Rugby of any sort before.

He is also keen for anyone who fancies a run out to get up to training 7.00pm Tuesday nights meeting at the car park of Ormerods Printers, off Ings Lane.