WELL done and sincere best wishes to the boys of Saddleworth School who have won their way through to a massive national rugby league schools’ final double.
The under-16s (Year 11) were beaten in their final by Outwood Grange Academy while the under-15s (Year 10) take on the Brooksbank School of Elland in their final at Warrington’s Victoria Park this Friday night, July 5, starting at 7pm.
It will be a huge day of top schoolboy rugby league, featuring Year 8, Year 9 and Year 10 finals in the Warners Champion Schools’ Finals Day.
Each final, including Saddleworth v Brooksbank, will be broadcast live on the RFL’s Our League app.
More than 20,000 schoolboys and schoolgirls from more than 1,000 schools from England and Wales started out on the road to Warrington.
Schools from Leeds, Hull, Wigan, Widnes, Cumbria, Castleford, Warrington, Dewsbury, Manchester, Elland and OLDHAM won through to the finals.
Gary Melling, head of rugby at Saddleworth School, said: “Without blowing our own trumpet, we think we’ve had a marvellous year.
“To get two teams in national finals is some achievement and I would like to congratulate each of the boys involved.”
The RFL has been running Champion Schools for more than three decades and this year, for the first time, agreed a welcome sponsorship deal with Warners Fish Merchants, the UK’s biggest importer of Icelandic frozen-at-sea haddock and cod.
The Year 7 finalists (any two of Great Sankey of Warrington, Brooksbank of Elland, Standish of Wigan or Wade Deacon of Widnes) will play their final at Wembley as a curtain-raiser to the Coral Challenge Cup, playing for the Steven Mullaney Trophy.
