Wirral Achieve First Double of the Season

After a number of weeks of inactivity, due to frozen grounds and the Christmas festivities, the season resumed with a home fixture against WP, this was the second of our reverse fixtures, with both sides looking for a win to move away from the relegation area.
Wirral made a tactical change with Danny Harvey and Sam Broadbent changing positions, Ollie Atkinson resuming on the wing. The substitutes were Jason Green, Richard MacMillan and Chris Tyson.
WP played with the benefit of the breeze and the first 10 minutes were spent in the Wirral half and Wirral could not get out of their own half. After 10 minutes came the first injury of the day, with Dave Doneo retiring through a hamstring injury and Chris Tyson joined the fray.
Wirral now got into the game and play was now in the WP half and after 15 mins. Wirral were awarded penalty and from half way in from the touchline and some 31m out against the wind, Danny Harvey converted. 3-0. A further penalty 7 mins later was missed as it hit the post and rebound to safety when WP second row Hanson was sin binned.
WP played the wind advantage, clearing down field whenever possible, where we then saw a concerted attack on the Wirral line and WP were held up over the line and despite repeated thrusts to the line, the Wirral defence held out. At this stage, Wirral were able to clear their line when WP were further punished when Murphy was sin binned, leaving WP down to 13 men for a short period of time. Wirral worked their way up field and ended the half exerting pressure on the WP line but could not breach the WP defence.
For the start of the second half it appeared that the breeze had died down, but the start of the 2nd half was punctuated by a number of injuries to various players, but our wishes for a speedy recovery go to the WP hooker, Price who left the field with a suspected broken arm. He was duly substituted. When play resumed it was becoming apparent that Wirral were beginning to exert pressure but not able to complete the final move. A series of penalties took play into the Wirral half and WP had a penalty attempt from 40m out but this fell short.
Wirral mounted another attack down the right where centre, Martin McNeil gained good ground before a pass inside to Robbie Pearl; saw the latter stopped metres from the line. With 20 mins to go, Jason Green and Richard MacMillan came on for Steve Pendergast and Martin McNeil respectively. Sustained pressure was then exerted on the WP line with both Ali Child and Ben Marsh being held up over the line. Wirral then moved the ball down the backs with Ollie Atkinson racing on to the ball and the final pass did not go to hand with the line at Wirral’s mercy.
The WP prop McLaughlin then went off injured! which meant that WP had already used their front row replacement and thus for the rest of the match we were left with uncontested scrums. With the scrums not being contested, Wirral could not put any pressure on the WP scrum and WP were able to work their way up field aided by penalties given by Wirral. This led to WP having a period of concentrated play on the Wirral line and they themselves were held up over the line, as WP had the feed at the resultant scrums and thus won the scrum as these were, of course, not contested. The Wirral line again held out and eventually cleared, however a further discretion by the WP fly half, Green resulted in a further yellow card.
With the second half approaching an hour due to the number of injuries, it appeared that the score was to remain 3-0.but with the final play of the game came the first clean break of the game. From a line out 45m out, WP had the ball but was stolen by Chris Tyson who made the initial break who passed onto Ali Baker to Sam Edgar, the latter drawing the full back before passing to Ben Marsh who dived over to guarantee Wirral’s win. The try was not converted. With a score line of 8-0 this final score denied WP a losing bonus point.
Wirral needed this win to maintain their position in this highly competitive league (in fact they moved up one position). However they needed to get this game out of their system and look to improve over the coming weeks especially given that next week’s game is against Wigton, who are one place below Wirral in the league.
If anyone is looking to support the team at Wigton (8 miles south of Carlisle) then there are places available on the coach, please contact the club officials for details.

Richard McNeil