York Tigers picked for England Squad
Not only are they on course to win the League if they can win one of their next ten games, they are unbeaten in their ten games thus far.
The highlight of the season was a league-deciding fixture against Northumbria, where a last minute try allowed the Tigers to claim victory 32-30.
Furthermore, Wesley Rogers, Owwain Rhodda and Matt Johnson were all selected to participate on the North East Squad. Rogers has been playing rugby for 12 years on an amateur team back home, and then played at the semi-pro level for Hull Kingston Rovers Academy. He has recently faced the challenge of, “recovering following a Cruciate Ligament reconstruction that kept [him] out for ten months.”
Rodda played rugby union, for seven years and changed to rugby league at the university level two years ago. “I felt my running ability would be better suited to the opposite code of rugby league,” commented Rodda about making the change.
Johnson, is captain of the team, and has two regional championships under his belt. “My dad played rugby league so I always had it in my head that I would play,” commented Johnson who has also played for the Huddersfield Giants semi-pro team.
The North East squad played three games in Liverpool over a weekend, where they swept the competition. The first game, played against a team made up of Midlands students, resulted in a 36-6 win for North East. In the following game North East was able to shut out Ireland 16-0 to claim a spot in the final where they overcame North West 16-6. Rodda received man of the match honours in the final game.
“Having finished bottom last year, the North East were underdogs to say the least but an impressive defensive record made us hard to beat and allowed us to go all the way against a North West students team containing a large number of current international players,” said Rogers about the tournament.
After the regional championships Rodgers and Rodda received another honour when they were selected to participate in the England National Team, two teams made up of the top 40 players in the country. “We have received conditioning programs and will participate in a trial match in February to determine which team we are on,” commented Rogers. The agenda for the squad includes test matches against Ireland, France, and Australia, the Home Nation Championships in Wales, the tours to Holland, and ultimately the World Cup in 2005.
The Tigers feel that with all these successes, 2003-2004 is their year, “we have real good team spirit,” comments Rogers, “we missed out by one or two points last year and it is about time we won.” Johnson credits the success to the size of the team and lack of injuries, but feels, “we could still use more participants, especially from York University.”
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