Rugby League: London Skolars Action This Weekend, come on down.

For the first time this season Skolars first team will play a home Co-operative Championship fixture on a Saturday at New River, when they take on South Wales Scorpions tomorrow – kick off 2.30pm. Skolars will be looking for a third consecutive home win, which would close the gap between themselves and their visitors to only two points.


Skolars ‘A’ team, who now compete in the RLC Premier division, travel to Croydon on Saturday to face South London Storm. The ‘A’s made their league debut last Saturday and came away from Eastern Rhinos with a creditable 30-30 draw. Kick-off for this fixture is 2.30pm.

Also in action on Saturday are Skolars 18′s and 16′s, who both play home fixtures at New River in the morning. The 18′s face Hainault whilst the 16′s come up against Eastern Rhinos. The 14′s were also due to play at home against the Rhinos 14′s but unfortunately this game has been cancelled as the opposition were unable to travel.

So, it’s an action packed Saturday ahead with no less than four Skolars teams looking for victory. To wet your appetite the Olympic bar at New River will be running the very popular £1 a pint (Carlsberg) promotion tomorrow.

Last weekends match report below

Doncaster RLFC 40 London Skolars 22

Skolars lost out on a chance to maintain their move upwards towards the play-off spots, although it was not until midway through the second half that the Dons pulled away.

Neither side’s kicking on the sixth tackle was incisive, and both full-backs were able to return the ball with relative ease throughout the game.

Skolars’ James Anthony also made some good runs coming into the attacking line, his first run breaking the defence 40 metres out to open the scoring. Dons went into the lead with a break down the left wing, Nev Morrison avoiding Michael’s Brown’s grasp to ground the ball just before being dragged into touch.

Skolars then gave away two penalties in quick succession, one for offside, one for foul play and after Jack Ely had gone close early in the tackle count, he then barged through on the sixth tackle to put Dons further ahead. Skolars then pulled one back when Sam Gee slipped a pass to debutante Mourad Kriouache to score under the posts.

The Dons took advantage of another penalty, with Craig Robinson unstoppable from 10 metres out. They nearly added a fourth try on the final hooter, Morrison being offside from a chip kick.

Skolars forced a goal line drop out at the start of the second half, Sam Gee being held up on the sixth tackle, but they forced another drop out from the next set of six, from which David Williams powered over the tryline.

Doncaster re-asserted themselves with a try from Dom Dee after some good passing between Scott Spaven and Craig Fawcett. Jack Ely was held up soon afterwards and then set up the next try moving the ball out to Nev Morrison to go over in the corner for his second try. The Dons scored again in the next set of six through Chris Spurr with Skolars seemingly unable to stop the flow. Whilst there was no drama of the type that marred the game at New River, there was certainly some needle between the sides, although that’s probably due to the importance of the game to both sides as the season reaches a critical stage.

When Skolars did get hold of the ball they advanced well, but Don’s defence forced Ade Adebisi into the corner flag. Chris Spurr then broke through the defence and offloaded to Spaven, who was stopped just short of the line, but was able to get the ball out of the tackle with the supporting Carl Hughes picking the ball up a metre from the line for an easy try.

Skolars had a consolation try when Dylan Skee’s break put Ben Bolger over on the left flank, but that was little comfort to Joe Mbu, who was “very disappointed not to have picked up at least a bonus point after being in contention for most of the game.”