Wirral Once Again Just Lose Out to Waterloo

Following heavy rain overnight and in the morning the sun came out and as usual the Blundellsands ground looked in ideal conditions.
Wirral were forced to make a number of changes with JAMES ANNETTS and ADAM SHELDON both suffering hand injuries, with the former being out for a number of weeks with a serious thumb injury. This necessitated a change in the backs with DAN HARVEY moving to full back and Wirral were able to give debuts to two players, MARK GRIFFITHS at centre and SIMON FLAVELL on the wing, the latter following his 5 try scoring spree last week for the seconds. MATT LOON came back into the side on the other wing. TOM PARRY and RYAN STEAD came into the pack in place of JAMES REEVE and CHRIS TYSON respectively, who were on the subs bench along with ROSS PAGE.
Wirral played with the wind advantage in the first half and it was the away side who did the early attacking and had a couple of half chances but were thwarted by the Waterloo defence. From a line out, RYAN STEAD stole the ball and made a 20metre break; from this, the ball came left only for DAN HARVEY to be held up 3m from the line. Waterloo came back into the game using their forwards with Dan King making good yardage, a switch in play saw a kick to touch 5m from the Wirral line. Play was already moving from one end to the other, with half chances to both sides but defences were on top.
For the second week running, Wirral suffered the loss of a winger, with SIMON FLAVELL suffering a hamstring injury on his debut having made a number of promising runs. CHRIS SPEED went to wing with JAMES REEVE coming into the back row and ROB PEARL to No.8. On 30 mins, Waterloo created an overlap but the final pass went to ground. On 32 mins the breakthrough came for Waterloo when a half break from Freeman Payne enabled him to slip a pass to Liam Reeve to score close to the posts and converted by James Robins, 7-0- 32mins. CHRIS TYSON came on for PAUL LEWIS. A further break by Cunningham almost caught out Wirral with a kick over the full back but the away side managed to clear. ROSS PAGE came on for CHRIS HUGHES.
On 38 minutes came the try of the match as Wirral commenced their attack from 70m out with a break by DAN HARVEY who handed on to MATT LOON who beat his winger and rounded the full back to score under the posts, CRAIG HARVEY converted. This left the score 7-7 at half time.
The second half started with Wirral on the attack and it was apparent that Wirral with their backs had the ability to make ground and a run down the wing by MATT LOON took play into the Waterloo 20m area. With play on the Waterloo line, Wirral could not capitalise on their possession and eventually Waterloo cleared. Play continued to switch from end to end and the Wirral backs with good play were able to make progress down the right with further good runs by MARK GRIFFITHS and MATT LOON took play into the home side 20m area. On 52 mins, Wirral took the lead when pressure on the Waterloo line resulted in CRAIG HARVEY delaying his pass to DAN HARVEY who shot through the gap to score under the posts, CRAIG converted, 7-14. On 58 mins, ROB PEARL was yellow carded for tackling with his shoulder.
Subsequent play saw the ball knocked on by Waterloo, which was picked up by Wirral and an attack started only for the referee to bring back play and award the home side with a penalty!! for an incident he did not see. From this play, Waterloo put pressure on Wirral and using the extra man they created an overlap to enable Jacob Allen to score in the corner, which was converted from the touchline by Liam Reeve. 14-14 (62 mins). PAUL LEWIS came back on for CHRIS TYSON.
Wirral had a penalty opportunity, 25m out but 5m from the touchline but was missed. From the resultant 20m kick off, the Waterloo player taking the kick fell over the foot of JAMES REEVE but to everyone surprise the referee issued a yellow card to the Wirral player and thus for a short period of time until ROB PEARL returned, Wirral were down to 13 men. Whilst still down to 14 men, Waterloo scored their final try with a push over try with the forwards and backs combining to push the Wirral pack over the line. This was again converted by Reeve. 21-14- 65 mins.
For the remainder of the game all the pressure came from Wirral as Waterloo hung on and being quite happy to clear their lines, the minutes passed and for the final 4 minutes Wirral were camped on the Waterloo line and many thrusts were made but the home side defence held out. Wirral attacked the blindside, i.e. away from the posts given a converted try was required to equalise the scores. In the final play of the game eventually the breakthrough came when PAUL LEWIS crashed over 18 metres from the posts. Unfortunately the conversion was missed, the referee blew for time and once again Waterloo had won this game by the small margin of 2 points.
All who watched the game felt a draw would have been a fair result but once again it was an advert for rugby for those who like an open game between two footballing sides. From the away side’s point of view, debutant MARK GRIFFITHS made a promising start to his first team career.
Next Saturday the first team are at home to Huddersfield YMCA with the match being played on the main pitch and we look forward to your support.
Richard McNeil