Ponteland 39 -0 Houghton
By Chris Morgan
Ponteland continued their push for promotion from Durham and Northumberland Division 2 with a straight forward win against Houghton.
Despite the simplicity of the victory for the home side, the match was not short of controversy as complaints from the visitors about the state of the Ponteland Leisure Centre pitch threatened to call the game off twenty minutes in before the unusual situation of a pitch change occurred.
The first fifteen minutes were fairly even, with Pont just shading the opening stages. The general play on show was scrappy though with mistakes from both sets of players meaning the game lacked any real fluidity early on.
One area in which the home side were stronger though was the scrums where the indomitable front row trio of Kris Scott, Mark Kelly and Chris Steven continued their recent run of good form, putting the visiting pack on the back foot on more than one occasion.
And their persistent hard work paid off after 20 minutes when a push and drive saw Craig Robinson tumble over for the opening score before Dan Walton neatly converted.
Extraordinary scenes then followed when several Houghton players pleaded with the referee that the playing surface was unsafe and the match was switched up the hill to the second team pitch – Pont’s second string lending a sympathetic hand and vacating to the nearby training pitch.
In truth, the decision to switch pitches was nothing short of a farce. The original pitch had been passed fit just hours earlier and whilst it was clearly muddy, there appeared to be no standing water.
Even more ridiculously, the new pitch was barely superior with molehills clearly visible in some areas and the brave spectators forced to stand in a quagmire as the match restarted.
And despite being the main instigators in the relocation, it was ironically the visitors who soon found themselves bogged down in their new surroundings as Pont scored again just two minutes after the restart – skipper Danny Harrison going over in the corner as the home side started where they had left off – almost fifteen minutes after the decision was made to change pitches.
While the game had been competitive in the first twenty minutes, Pont put their foot on the gas in the following few minutes as the Houghton pack could not cope with their superior Ponteland counterparts.
As the visitors consistently collapsed the scrum and committed infringements at the break down, the referee finally lost patience and awarded a penalty try as the final ten minutes of the first half was played entirely in the Houghton 22.
With a 19-0 lead at the break, Ponteland came out in the second half all guns blazing as Houghton looked a forlorn outfit. Fly half Dan Walton scored the most simple of tries before the score of the match came from in-form winger Jonathan Murphy. As the pack once again won the ball at the breakdown, the ball was flung out to Murphy who beat his opposite number for pace, running the best part of 30 yards to score in the corner.
Despite this, the rest of the match was far from a vintage performance from Pont as their attempts at playing running rugby were thwarted by their own handling inabilities as ball after ball was dropped.
Nevertheless, they did add two further tries. Murphy’s fellow winger Jack Storey added to his already impressive try tally for the season before Mark Kelly capped an excellent personal performance with a well taken score for a 39-0 victory.
The form of Kelly and his fellow front rowers has been one of the reasons behind Ponteland’s success this season and this game was no different as the home side’s promotion push continued, leaving their beleaguered visitors very much stuck in the mud.
Ponteland: Steven, Kelly, Scott, Weir, Livingstone- Evans, Harrison, Laverick, Robinson, White, Walton, Storey, Moses, Turnbull, Murphy, Newbigin. Replacements: Norris, McGookin, Byrne
