Lancashire open origin with win

• Lancashire took the win in Game one of Academy origin with a strong win over Yorkshire at the Mend-A-Hose Jungle.
• Maddox Jeffery, Ryan Brown and Nathan Lowe were all on the scoresheet.
• FT | Lancashire 42-20 Yorkshire.

Lancashire took a 1-0 lead in the 2023 Academy Origin series with an impressive 42-20 victory over Yorkshire in Castleford, with six Warriors involved across the two teams.

With their matchday 17 comprising eight Saints, four Wolves and five Wigan Warriors, the visitors ran in four tries in each half.

Lancashire surged to a 22-0 lead inside 25 minutes, with the St Helens pair of Vaughan and Noah Stephens setting the tone.

Stephens, a strong-running prop who has also excelled in schoolboy rugby union with St Mary’s in Crosby, burst through to send Vaughan over, with another Saint, the scrum half Will Roberts, adding a simple conversion.

The St Helens dominance continued as Dayon Sambou crossed on the right, following in the foosteps of his elder brother Jumah who made a try-scoring senior debut for Saints on the same Castleford ground last season.

This time Roberts was unable to convert but he made amends 10 minutes later by curling over an excellent goal after players from Wigan and Warrington had got in on the act, with Thewlis crossing from the Warriors stand-off Jack Farrimond’s lovely long pass.

Ryan Brown, another Wigan player who had combined effectively with Stephens to establish Lancashire’s forward supremacy, then surged over from close range.

It was a third Wigan player who finally put Yorkshire on the board in the 32^nd minute as Maddox Jeffery, a wing who they signed from the Featherstone Lions community club, showed impressive power to cross on the left.

But Lancashire reasserted their dominance at the start of the second half as Ciaran Nolan, another Saints youngster who had come off the interchange bench, sent Vaughan over for his second try.

Yorkshire replied with their second try, as the Huddersfield second-row Max Merta rose highest to collect a kick from the Warrington full-back Noah Booth, and the Hull FC half-back Sullivan Medforth added an excellent conversion.

But Lancashire were again quick to kill off any thoughts of a White Rose fightback, as the Wigan centre Nathan Lowe charged over, and although the Wakefield Trinity centre Oliver Pratt scored a third Yorkshire try from Medforth’s sharp dummy half pass, it was again cancelled out as Lowe’s pass allowed the St Helens wing Owen Dagnall to cross on the right.

Huddersfield centre Jack Hudson, the son of the former England forward Ryan who was watching in the stand, appeared to have completed the scoring when he rounded off a good handling move in stoppage time, with Medforth again goaling from wide out.

But even then there was time for Lancashire to have the last word as Thewlis, whose elder brother Josh could be set for a senior England debut against France this weekend before turning 21 on Sunday, touched down a precise Farrimond kick.

Yorkshire now have four weeks to plot their revenge in the second match of the series at Sewell Group Craven Park on May 27, before it concludes at the Totally Wicked Stadium on August 18 – with the RFL’s Head of Pathways Paul Anderson set to select an England Academy side for their first international since 2019 against France in June.

Yorkshire: Noah Booth, Matt Hanley, Jack Hudson, Oliver Pratt, Maddox Jeffery, Jack Charles, Sullivan Medforth, Jack Billington, Jeylan Hodgson, Lucas Green, Ethan Wood, Max Merta, Kye Armstrong.

Interchanges: Will Hutchinson, Cobie Wainhouse, Bobby Hartley, Jacob Bateman.

18th Player: Lennie Ellis.

Tries: Jeffery, Merta, Pratt, Hudson.

Goals: Medforth 2.

Lancashire: Harry Robertson, Jake Thewlis, Nathan Lowe, Dayon Sambou, Owen Dagnall, Jack Farrimond, Will Roberts, Noah Stephens, Ben Hartill, Ryan Brown, Jake Davies, Jon Vaughan, Taylor Kerr.

Interchange: Ciaran Nolan, Joe Bajer, Thomas McKinney, Lukas Mason.

18th Player: Harvey Braddish.

Tries: Vaughan 2, Sambou, Thewlis 2, Brown, Lowe, Dagnall.

Goals: Roberts 5.