Fantastic end to season

A FANTASTIC end to the season for the Warrington Wolves Handball Academy under 18 boys saw them finish the campaign in third place in the National League division one, just missing out on a silver medal.
Although missing out on silverware, the boys and everyone involved at the Warrington Wolves Academy were delighted with the outcome. Considering they fielded teams with a much lower average age than the rest of the league for the majority of the season, they did extremely well.
The boys Academy squad has since split into two age groups, under 16s and under 18s, and considering the success of the younger players at a higher level, things are looking bright for the future.
The final day of the season saw boys start with a disappointing 13-11 defeat to Cannock. England star Alex Bradley wasn’t happy with the result and claimed “we should’ve won that”.
However, the opening match seemed to blow away the cobwebs for the young Wolves and with a third place spot up for grabs in the final showdown with Manchester Hawks it was always going to be a good match.
Wolves were yet to have beaten Manchester this season and knew if they were to finish the season in third place, they would have to battle hard.
Warrington got off to a flying start and took an early lead. Man of the match, goalkeeper Jamie Simpson pulled off a string of spectacular saves to keep Manchester’s score down while the rest of the Wolves kept picking up points. Winger Danny Snape showed a lot of flare, leaving his opposite winger embarrassed on numerous occasions by spinning past him to score from very tight angles. By half time, Warrington were leading 12-8 and it looked as though they would cruise to the finish.
But Manchester came out fighting in the second half and whittled the deficit down to one goal. From then on it was a cat and mouse game, with Manchester always trailing but never by a large margin. At times it looked like Warrington might be caught but their persistence paid off. They were always quicker to react in the constant goal mouth scrambles and as the final whistle blew they lead by 21 goals to 20 leaving them in a much desired 3rd place finish.
The girls were also in action over the weekend. After last weeks defeat, the first of the season, they had a few scores to settle and that’s what they did. They eased to a 10-7 victory over Deva HC and a 16-12 victory over Manchester Hawks. The season is not yet over for the girls teams but Warrington are looking firmly back on track to take the top spot.
Pictured: Wolves celebrate third place in their new kit.