Waterloo Scrape a Victory in the Derby Match

Despite the weather during the previous week, the pitch was in first class condition for this match against the nearest team in the league, Waterloo and thus the match attracted the largest crowd of the season.
For the third week running Wirral started with the same XV, the only change being CHRIS HUGHES coming in as replacement for STEVE PENDERGAST.
The first minute of the game, brought an attack from Waterloo from their own 20m area making some 60m in all. From there, the away side put pressure on the Wirral pack with a series of 5m scrums but eventually Wirral were able to clear but not able to get out of their half. A kick through by Waterloo almost resulted in a try but fortunately the ball was knocked on. As a result of this pressure, Liam Reeve converted a penalty from 20m to give Waterloo a 0-3 lead, (10 minutes). At this stage, JACK YARKER left the field injured to be replaced by CHRIS HUGHES.
Wirral then put together a move which took them up to the Waterloo 20m area and then had a series of thrusts at the Waterloo line, only for the home side to be penalized when pressing for the line! On 29 minutes, Waterloo extended the lead to 0-6 with a 40m penalty from Reeve. KEITH MAHON came on for MIKE WARREN.
The number of penalties against Wirral was excessive and subsequently paid the price when ROB PEARL was deemed to have come in from the side at a maul and given a yellow card in the last minute before half time. Reeve added a further penalty to give Waterloo a 0-9 lead.
At the start of the second half, Wirral commenced a move from 75m out which saw the ball come out to ALI BAKER, who made an initial break, kicked ahead and ran round his winger to win the race to score 7m in from the corner flag. The try was well converted by JAMES ANNETTS to reduce the deficit to 7-9 (42 mins). CHRIS BURROWS came on for PAUL LEWIS.
With ROB PEARL back on the field, a break by him opened up the Waterloo defence, drew the last defender before passing to the fast finishing ALI BAKER, only for the pass to be knocked down by the Waterloo player. A clear case for a penalty try or at the very worst a scrum in our favour, nothing. From this play Freeman Payne put in a relieving kick, which did not reach touch, bounced awkwardly and collected by Waterloo, who took advantage of a disorganized Wirral defence to send Jon Cunningham on a run to the line to score, this was converted by Reeve to extend Waterloo’s lead to 7-16 (53 mins). This was blow to Wirral, which in fact was a 14 point turn round situation.
Four minutes later, a JAMES ANNETTS penalty from 38 m reduced the arrears to 10-16 as Waterloo gave away a number of penalties, but no sin bin! All the pressure was now coming from Wirral but they could not pierce the away sides defence and it was now apparent that Waterloo were content to kick away possession for territory. As the game wore on, Waterloo gave up the option of trying to penetrate the Wirral defence and settled for two kickable attempts at goal, to stop Wirral getting a losing bonus point. None of these succeeded. As for Wirral they turned down kickable goal options as they pressed forward into the Waterloo 22 area but alas the opening did not present itself against one of the top three clubs in the league. It was Waterloo who played out the final minutes and it was they that were relieved to hear the final whistle.
Next week, Wirral are at home to league leaders, Sandal, who had defeated Waterloo the previous week 24-19. We look forward to another large crowd at the Memorial Ground to support the team.
Richard McNeil