Tough Day at the Office
The better side won.
A frustrating day ensued at Westoe for 2s in their first league game on Saturday. The usual arrival at Westoe; get changed, into cars to local school pitch, people getting lost on way, shortage of flag poles (or not able to get them inserted) etc meant Ponteland started with minimal preparation .
The game was played with contested scrums because Elliott Mew and Rob Ash agreed to play out of position and both of these guys had fantastic games along with Andy Hindmarsh who played his first 80 minutes in 3yrs.
A much changed side once again with a few first games of the season. A great tempo by Ponteland in the first 10-15mins had Ponteland on the attack and unlucky not to score a try or two, even a penalty shot drifted wide in the breeze, but the chances were not taken and gradually the heavier Westoe team took the upper hand and scored some good bulldozing tries. 7 in total unanswered by Pont, some may have had the rub of the green with possible passes forward in the run up but on the whole the best team won.
Pont ended the game on a high with a well struck pen by Will McGawley on the final whistle to avoid a zero.
As someone who does not criticise referees generally as a rule I think this game unfortunately was marred by an unsympathetic man in the middle, on the day, who brandished 6 or 7 yellow cards for what most people agreed were mostly minimal offenses. Probably the highest tackle of the day by a Ponteland player got penalised by a penalty, with others getting yellow cards for less dangerous ones , some guys got yellow cards for doing what they were coached to do at training. Myself and my colleagues felt overall it spoilt the day for most of the players who ended up unsure what the next decision was going to be. Everyone needs refs and the general feeling was this was not a dirty game, certainly no injuries from foul play, no visible foul play to warrant as many cards and lectures. The ref might say it was because he cut it out at first sign of what he thought were inflammatory situations and he is the man in charge so we play to his interpretation even if some of us disagree.
I have to admit I missed quite a lot of the action (from climbing over fences up and down bank sides to retrieve the match balls. I thought the home team took the most difficult side, but obviously wrong there too, but I certainly saw nothing but a good physical contest.
Plusses on the day for Ponteland were getting game time and 1st starts for Olly Dykes with his trademark storming bursts getting over the game line time and again, Jack Smith a steady defensive display and Dan Marcus looking sharp and strong on his return. When we get a more settled side out our link up play will come, because some excellent lines ended up coming short, ending with the final pass missing out or knocked on and frustration did not boil over into anything stupid.
MOM Elliott Mew
TEAM E Mew R Ash A Hindmarsh G Kipling O Dykes R Earnshaw C Searle PMcAreevey P Redhead
W McGawley J Smith D Marcus A Suppan S Mugford S Walton