The annual trip to Eastham to play ANS was played yesterday in good weather conditions on a pitch
which to my mind had been cut rather short and was tending to cut up during the game.
For Wirral there were 4 changes from the team that played last week against Bowdon last week with
ALFIE KIMPTON, HARRY HAWLEY, MARK WILLIAMS and GRUFF ROBERTS not being available due to
work, injury and other commitments. The team saw the young prop, JOSEF HEALEY making his
second appearance against the much bigger ANS forwards: JAMES REEVE came into the second row.
In the backs, WILL MORRIS and RHYS JAMES playing full back and fly half respectively and in the
centres were BEN BROOKS (brought back into the team) and making his debut at centre was
SPENCER GRAHAM. The subs were JOHNSON CHANDIGERE, JACK BRUCE, BEN LEWIS and DON
CARROL.
The kick off was now 3.00pm with Wirral playing towards Eastham with the away team kicking off
and putting ANS under pressure and in the early period ANS gave away 3 penalties and within 3
minutes RHYS JAMES kicked an easy penalty to give Wirral a 0-3 lead. In the early play Wirral were
looking to put ANS under pressure with two grubber kicks deep into ANS half. On 16 minutes ANS
had play down in the Wirral half and from possession scored close to the posts to give the home
team a 7-3 lead.
ANS were now looking for position and were kicking high and deep and one of these kicks was
dropped giving ANS the opportunity to attack and although crossing the line the referee deemed the
ball was not grounded giving Wirral the ability to clear. Further play in mid field led to SPENCER
GRAHAM being sin binned, back came ANS to attack the Wirral line only to have another try denied
by the referee as not being grounded, although ANS committee said “the ball was grounded but the
referee was unsighted”. The ANS next try came from a kick through which enabled the right winger
to race through and collect to score, the conversion was missed, 12-3 (27 mins). In the period up to
half time, Wirral were able to stem the ANS attacks and 2 minutes before half- time, Wirral reduced
the lead to 12-6 with a penalty from 40m by RHYS JAMES.
The second half started with plenty of enthusiasm from Wirral with changes made, JACK BRUCE and
DAN CARROL on for JAMES REEVE and JOHNSON CHANDIGERE. The half started with a good run by
WILL MORRIS who made 50m into the ANS half, before ANS hit back although good tackling by
Wirral kept ANS at bay until 50 mins when ANS scored from a scrum, when the scrum half dummied
his way over the line to score under the posts to extend the ANS lead to 19-6.
JOHNSON CHANDIGERE back on in place of DAN CARROL. Wirral were now on the attack and trying
to get over the ANS line but lost the ball 5m from the ANS line, the ball was passed wide giving the
right wing partnership the opportunity to set up a try scoring chance and the speed of the backs did
not give Wirral any chance of stopping the move as ANS score under the posts, giving them their try
bonus point, 26-6 (59 mins).
Wirral continued to attack until a grubber kick by RHYS JAMES exposed the ANS defence and WILL
MORRIS was first on hand to collect and score 15m from the corner flag, the conversion was missed
26-11 (63 mins). In the final minutes of the game, ANS mauled their way over for a 5 th try and the
ANS final try was from a pass so far forward that you had to be on the next bus stop to collect it and
of course it was converted (75 mins).

The final outcome was a fracas in the middle of the park and it was obvious that the referee had
enough and closed down the match a couple of minutes early.
No match next week, Wirral next play at home on the 21 st against Long Eaton with a 3.00pm kick off.
We are all off next week watching England trying to play against France who will be out to revenge
their defeat against Scotland yesterday.
Richard McNeil