The newly-launched 11-a-side U19 Regional Series has wrapped up its inaugural season as the last of five fixtures took place this month in Nottingham.
The South Kings defeated the Midlands Mighty Oaks 30-7 at David Ross Sports Village in Nottingham to round off five well-contested match-ups between the Series’ five franchises.
Joining the Kings and Mighty Oaks in the Series were Scotland U19, Team North and SGS Pride, collectively progressing U19 American football from nine to eleven-a-side level with training camps and fixtures across the country.
| Game One | SGS Pride | 26 | 0 | Scotland U19 |
| Game Two | Scotland U19 | 17 | 10 | Team North |
| Game Three | South Kings | 6 | 21 | SGS Pride |
| Game Four | Team North | 21 | 19 |
Midlands Mighty Oaks
|
| Game Five | Midlands Mighty Oaks | 7 | 30 | South Kings |
Reflecting on their win in Nottingham and the Series as a whole, Kings head coach Aaron Alexis praised the efforts of his players and coaching staff.
“The last four months of this has been hard work for the kids,” Alexis said.
“We’ve really pushed them hard, really made the demands from them to see the improvement on a weekly basis. But after this game, the performance that they’ve done individually, every single player has stepped up.
“It’s been fantastic to see the buy-in from every single one of the players along with the coaches, they’ve been so committed. I couldn’t have asked for better coaches this year. You can see the progression with those players and that’s mainly what this is all about.
“It’s about developing those players, and I’m very confident that they’ll be going back to their clubs better players.”
Sam Stoddart, BAFA’s co-lead on U16 & U19 Contact Development, expressed his excitement at the conclusion of the 2024 Regional Series with even more to come in 2025.
He commented: “I’m delighted that the inaugural BAFA Regional Series 2024 has now completed.
“I would firstly like to thank all the Franchise holders and their respective coaching staffs for their hard work and dedication for this slate. Pulling something like this off and coordinating players and staff all across the nation is not something that is easily done without the right people in place and I think for its inception year we really had an excellent group of people pioneering the way for our U19 players.
Images courtesy of Estelle Mai, George Edwards and South Kings.
