The Fylde U15/U16 squad welcomed Tarleton to the Woodlands for a friendly match on Sunday 7th February. The home side kicked off to start the match and were soon pressuring the Tarleton line. After a period of sustained pressure a Fylde player infringed offside just near the try line and Tarleton playing the advantage kicked clear only for the ball to be collected on halfway by James Everett playing out of position in the centre. He fed the ball to Billy Ramm who eluded a couple of tackles to in turn feed speedy winger Sam Smith who then made a mazy run through several attempted tackles to score a beautiful try which was converted by Harry Duff. Almost immediately from the resultant re-start Fylde were put under extreme pressure which almost inevitably resulted in Tarleton using their heavy forwards to surge over under the posts. Almost unbelievably with no pressure at all the Tarleton goal kicker attempted a drop goal conversion which failed miserably much to the derision of his own players! The remainder of this half was quite evenly matched with both teams having chances. Oliver Tripper was unlucky on one such occasion just loosing the ball in contact metres away from the try line. There was however no further scoring and the half time score remained at 7-5 to the home side. The second half started off quite even but gradually Tarleton started to get their game together and gained some good ground. Fylde’s cause wasn’t helped by a number of injuries which eventually left them fielding only 14 players. With a numerical advantage Tarleton scored two more tries one of which was converted to give them a final score and win at 7-17. Credit to the Fylde lads who despite the score line played a really good game and were possibly unlucky not to add to their first half tally. The U15 front row of the Lund twins also held their own creditably against a much more experienced Tarleton three, one of whom was a Lancashire U16 District squad player!   

Final Score: Fylde 7 (7) Tarleton 17 (5)  Fylde scorers: Try: Smith Con: Duff  

Fylde Squad:  Smith, Duff, Todd, Everett, Nye, Trippier, Lund (Anthony), Kuhn, Stones, Goodlad, Lund (Andrew), Ramm, Virco, Forster, Madden, Maden-Wilkinson, Dalgleish