Old Moorlander selected to play for Yorkshire

Old Moorlander Will Bates has been selected as part of the U13 Yorkshire rugby development squad after a tough selection procedure involving hundreds of boys from all over Yorkshire.
Schools and clubs from across the region were invited by the England Rugby Academy to put forward players to take part in 3 training sessions. At each stage, the boys were whittled down further until team squads for South, West, North and Central Yorkshire were selected.

A full day tournament was then played between the district squads and from these 100 boys, 50 were put forward to a final trials day at which the successful training squad of 22, including Will, was selected.
This squad will now train together for the next two years to develop their rugby skills with expert coaching from the Leeds Carnegie Rugby Academy with an ultimate goal of reaching the U16 and U18 England squads.
A keen rugby player from the age of 5 when he first learnt tag rugby at Wetherby RUFC, Will played his first contact rugby aged 7 at Moorlands under the experienced eye of John Johnson and enjoyed a full rugby career at school, culminating in captaincy of the team in his final year. He now attends The Grammar School at Leeds where he continues to enjoy playing rugby and also plays for Otley RFC with whom he recently toured Italy bringing back the Benevento International Rugby Tournament trophy having played against Croatian, French and Italian teams.

Will, who lists his favourite rugby moment as scoring a try on the hallowed turf of Twickenham during a national tournament playing for Otley when he was 10, is very excited about the opportunity to develop his rugby as part of the Yorkshire squad and is sure the thorough and enjoyable grounding in the sport he received whilst at Moorlands will stand him in good stead for future progress.