Players from Gloucestershire Univiersity and UWE Hartpury were among forty students who gathered at Bristol University’s Coombe Dingle ground on Sunday to take part in trials for the South of England Students side that will be competing in the national championships in Widnes next month.
Hartpury’s James Copsey, Ollie Bloom, Steve Barnes and Mark George joined Tom King, Josh Pettifer, Daniel Poulton, John Symons and Gareth Betteridge from the University to bid for places in the prestigious national event.
Having been split into two teams, the players played a match consisting of four 15-minute quarters when personnel and positional variations were tried by the coaches, Karl Fearnley and Chris Baxter.
The game itself was evenly contested throughout and of a commendably high standard, which entertained the small group of family and friends that braved the biting cold wind to huddle in the small stand to watch the action.
The players will now be eagerly awaiting the announcement of the 20-man squad in a couple of weeks’ time by head coaches Dan Steel and Dan Garbutt.
They will then get together for a training session on 17 February in preparation for the championships, which take place in Widnes on the weekend of 15/16 March.
For the record, the Red team defeated the Blue team by five tries to three.
Red: Paul O'Connor, Aiden Oakley, Ollie Smith, Ollie Bloom, Jamie McCrae, Matt Elston, Tom Waterfield, Ed Payne, James Stewart, Gareth Betteridge, Fergus Shanahan, Dan Poulton, Ollie O'Mara, Tom King, Ben Spencer, Robbie Marr, Adam Hill, Dan O'Driscoll, Pierre Aghabala.
Blue: James Copsey, Martin Klijn, Josh Pettifer, Steve Barnes , Adam Balls, Alex Raymond, Tom Muir, Mark George, Rob Webber, John Symons, Josh Gunn, Jason Heavens, Lloyd Pullen, James Hill, Alex Hudson, Jason Holmwood, Rich Ashby, Matt Carter, Aran Quinn, Andrew Vickers.
about GR
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The Gloucestershire Rugby League is an organisation for local rugby league clubs in Gloucestershire. Our main activity currently is to promote rugby league through the County and give useful information about our sport to the public of Gloucestershire.
