ST Peter's School, York, director of rugby coaching Mike Johnston has tipped his Under-15 side to bounce back after their semi-final exit from the Daily Mail Cup.

They had been hoping to join their U18s on finals day at Twickenham on March 23.

But they went down 19-11 to St Benedict's School, Ealing, at Castlecroft Stadium in Wolverhampton.

St Peter's were hampered by the loss of half-backs Jonny Bairstow and Edmund Pang and St Benedict's took full advantage.

Johnston said: "Losing our half-backs was a blow but I thought the lads defended really well against a big strong side.

"We knew they hadn't lost for four or so years and they might force the game a bit and we would catch them out. But the lads will learn from this and I'm sure we'll be back."

St Benedict's opened the scoring with a converted try but stand-off Bairstow, son of the late Yorkshire and England wicketkeeper David Bairstow, injured a groin as he kicked a penalty for St Peter's and left the field at half-time.

Skipper and scrum-half Pang also went off with a knee injury and St Benedict's pulled away with two tries from Adam Cole in the second half.

Richard Downey grabbed an injury-time consolation for St Peter's.

Hopes that Millthorpe School would add to the York contingent at HQ ended when they were beaten 39-17 by Maidstone Grammar School in the U15 Vase semi-final.

Millthorpe, who only started playing rugby union three years ago, dominated for long spells without turning their pressure into points.

Coach Mike Boothman said: "We tried to keep it close in the forwards and look inside but every time we got turned over we got punished.

"I thought we deserved to be a lot closer than the score suggests, but I've told the lads that we're not a rugby specialist school and to come away having competed like we did was brilliant.

"I'm chuffed to bits with how well they've done and I've got a cracking bunch of year nines coming through for next year, so I hope they can go all the way."

Millthorpe's two tries were scored by centre Mark Wilson and fly-half Patrick Smith with Wilson kicking the extra points.

Maidstone's flying winger Nikolas Van Mol did the damage with four tries.

JOSEPH Rowntree School's disappointed netball stars have been given a new date to go for gold at the National Schools Championships.

Three teams, at U19, U16 and U13, all qualified to represent Yorkshire and Humberside at the finals last weekend in Redbridge, Essex, only for bad weather to force the cancellation. It had been feared no new date would be sorted.

But after an all-day meeting by the organisers on Monday, Sunday, May 15, has been set as the new date, giving the players the chance to continue their fundraising efforts.

Updated: 09:40 Wednesday, March 09, 2005