Ponteland Vets lose in extra time to a youthful Percy Park Marauders team.
Report by Tetts
Pont vets took the field against a youthful Percy Park Marauders, seeking to gain that elusive cup final berth. Several faces from yesteryear committed to play including Og & Wadsy in the engine room, Wrestler, Parker (glad to be retaining his freedom) and the Devon bound Olly Hughes in the back row, and the ever youthful stalwart Mal Jeffrey making a centre partnership with Mal Broom.
Pont started slowly as the aging bodies needed time to adjust to the pace ignited by Park's speedy youngsters. On the half hour mark, and with Pont trailing 19-12 disaster struck when Michael McKendrick sustained a nasty dislocation of his left ankle and fracture of his tibia. Strom, Brian Chick and Nick Morrison have all been in that predicament on the rugby field so it was a sombre period whilst we deliberated whether to continue playing. The spirit within the squad was good and the consensus was to play on. The 2nd half started and slowly but surely Pont started to increase the pressure and tries started to flow, with Harvey & Wrestler scoring some textbook forward tries by excellent close quarters play that was a pleasure to be associated with. Fate was against Pont when a mix up in midfield led to Park gaining possession and their overlap resulted in a try, giving a brace of tries to their extremely deceptive prop who was faster than anyone in our team! The scores were 28-28 with the conversion to come and the ref indicating time was up……..the kick to win………10 yards to the right of the posts……..an easy kick…….but the numpty hit the post. Count back indicated it was all square so extra time beckoned. Ten minutes each way to a bunch of 40+ Veterans was daunting and the mood dipped as we kicked off for the first period of extra time.
The Vets engines started to stutter enabling some of the younger opposition to benefit from our errors and Park quickly scored 2 converted tries. Mal Jeffrey was looking worried. Not because of the score but because Mrs Jeffrey was sitting at home waiting for him to return as they were due to attend a function in Darlington and the grey fox had negotiated terms to play rugby, on the promise he'd be back 'by 4pm' It was now 5.00pm and the Scotland England game had just kicked off.
A quick turn around and Pont started the 2nd half of extra time. The next 10 minutes saw some of the best forward play in living memory as the Pont forwards rumbled on up the field through their phases with exquisite style and panache. The flair exerted showed the experience of the players with Og, Wadsy, Brian Chick, Wacka and Harvey making the hard yards and a try finally rewarded their effort when Wrestler dived over and we were back in the game but time was running out. The full time whistle was met with genuine disappointment as we felt we didn't deserve to lose and this years cup run was over. The spirit within the team was magnificent and the team agreed we will start playing on the Vets circuit with our sights firmly fixed on the 2011 cup.
Man of the Match - the whole team. It was a real team performance.
D of the Day - Wrestler. He scored 2 tries, got the tankard but also picked up 10 mins in the bin for question the refs decision, not once but twice!
Special thanks to Park & the Ref who were very sympathetic to Michael's injury, and Michael was operated on within 24 hours to plate and pin his leg.
Tetts
