Garstang Back to Winning Ways
Sat 12th Dec 2009, 02:30 PM
25 Garstang - Tarleton 8
Garstang hosted Tarleton at Hudson Park for a crucial home fixture, a must win game bearing in mind previous poor results. The mood in the camp was positive, Garstang knew they had to up the anti and prove them selves in this tough league
Off the beginning the home side proved dominant and determined to put the game ahead their way. With the welcome return of regular fly half Andy Blackley they dominated the early phases with some strong rucking and mauling. With a strong attacking game plan this led to the first try of the game with number 8 Jimmy Richardson taking the ball up from the base of the scrum and powering over from close range. With the conversion from John Robinson the score stood at 7-0 to the home side.
At the restart Garstang were again on the front foot with Paul Brown taking the ball and feeding it to Andy Blackley who spun a pass wide to Adam Nickson who had the gas to beat two players to run in his first of the season for the Oaks.
These two scores gave the side a real lift and with confidence high in the team, captain John Robinson led the team through some strong phases of play. With the Oaks pack leading the way, the front row of Ben Corless, Steve Yardley and Dave Miller and second rows Keith Yates and Max Everest dominated the forward exchanges setting an excellent platform.
With 10 minutes to go in the first half, Tarleton managed to exert some pressure of their own and attacked well with some strong running from their centres. This caused the Garstang side quite a few problems and multiple infringements saw several penalties awarded to the away team. Luckily for the home side these missed.
After a measured half time talk by captain John Robinson Garstang started the second half strongly. Unfortunately on a confident attack they were intercepted and the Tarleton centre ran in a good solo effort to narrow the score line. This woke up the home team and let them know they had to work hard for the remaining half.
With Martin Barnes coming off with an injury he was replaced by Graeme Slater, making a welcome return from injury. Slats proceeded to maraud all over the park supporting the strong back row line of Jimmy Richardson, who was having the game of his season and the ever present Ainsley Pye, winning ball at every opportunity at number 7.
This enabled Garstang to set a platform for the remaining quarter of the match and they were now dominating at the scrums and line out. With twenty minutes remaining two replacements were made with a huge welcome back to Richard Orr in the second row, replacing Max Everest who had put in a great performance and Rob Charles replacing Paul Brown, who had had one of his larger days, at scrum half.
The next phase of play saw a great solo 50 metre run from front row forward Ben Corless. Powering through and knocking back several players he made a great platform for Tarleton to be penalised for a penalty. Garstang chose a scrum which was picked up by Jimmy Rich at 8, and recycled well from strong rucking by the home pack, to be fed to Richard Orr who powered over the line to score a try. This was converted by John Robinson. who had kicked well all game.
With ten minutes remaining and the team wanting more points Garstang opened the flood gates and put together some great attacking phases, under the direction of Blackley at 10 who fed his centres, Andy Emmot and Alistair Winkler, who both had strong games. They attacked and fed winger Pat Woods, on his return from university. At 6 foot 6 and packing a few more pounds from his uni life of "beer " he stepped in and out to score the final points of the match, 25 -8, a much needed win.
After the game Harvey Jones said, "This was a good performance, we need to believe in our abilities and keep to our game plan. This is a tough league and all team members need to keep positive, make training and build on this win to continue going forward. This is a team sport, dedication is needed at training and with patience and belief we can compete with all teams in this league"
Team: Miller, Yardley, Corless, Yates, Everest, Richardson, Pye, Barnes, Brown, Blackley, Bell, Emmott, Winkler, Woods, Robinson. Replacements: Orr, Nickson, Slater.
The game as reported by Tarleton is as follows:
“Tarleton arrived with only 17 players this week and for the first 10 minutes of the match they were under severe pressure from the Garstang attack. A Garstang attack was illegally stopped and from the resultant penalty the Garstang captain opted for a scrum from which their No.8 picked up and crashed over the line for the opening unconverted score.
Both sides were fairly even for most of the match as it happens but after 22 minutes a pass given out of the tackle was intercepted by a Garstang player who ran in under the posts for a converted try and a 12-0 lead. Tarleton took the game back to Garstang and were awarded a penalty in the oppositions’ 22 which was slotted by Chris Thorpe.
A good run by Graham Marshall was halted and the ball ripped off him, the defender was then pounced on by a couple of marauding backs and another penalty was received. Unfortunately, Ben Kelly’s standing foot slipped as he took the kick and although straight the ball fell short of clearing the upright. A further penalty was pulled by Chris Thorpe and in a brief spell 6 points had gone begging.
This left the half time score 12 – 3 to Garstang and at the start of the second half some quick ball from a ruck for the Tarleton backs saw Ben Kelly side step his opposing player and burst through the gap to score an unconverted try. At 12 – 8 Tarleton started to show some belief but a penalty for holding on was slotted by the Garstang Kicker to give them a 15-8 lead.
The line-outs didn’t go to plan today and 2 messed up defensive ones gave Garstang good attacking position and meant that Tarleton had to defend for the next 15 minutes. With half an hour of the 2nd half gone Tarleton started to take chances but too often wrong options were taken with forwards kicking for position and trying to throw passes that weren’t on. A penalty with 6 minutes to go gave Garstang an 18 – 8 lead and Tarleton were by now playing ‘catch up’ rugby and another intercepted pass gave Garstang another easy try to close off the game at 25 – 8.
This was not a bad performance by the Firsts, gifting 14 points to the opposition is never going to help so we just need to work on ball retention, support play and option taking in readiness for our final home match of the year against Trafford MV who we narrowly lost to earlier in the season.”
Match report courtesy of www.tarletonrugby.com |
