Blaydon 46 Wirral 10

 

🔴⚫️ Match Report 🔴⚫️

Saturday 18th January 2020

BLAYDON 46 – 10 WIRRAL

An 8 try demolition of Wirral along with Alnwick defeating neighbours Morpeth, pushed our visitors down into the bottom three and saw ourselves maintain our position in the championship race with the four top teams now separated by 5 points or less.

We began as usual using our pack as a platform but several handling errors saw us unable to open our account until the 15th minute when well won ball in mid field saw Captain Jack Davidson run in from 50 metres brushing off some poor tackles. Scores then followed at regular intervals despite us losing influential full back and kicker Ryan Foreman in the 8th minute with a leg injury followed shortly after by second row Jack Inglis on his home debut, retiring with a hand injury necessitating a visit to hospital.

Wirral then equalised when fly half Chris Crowley cleverly shot through a defensive gap for an uncoverted try but Davidson soon after put the home side in front following a good run by Alex Clarke and he finished off from 25 metres. The visitors then had their best period of play but could not break down a resolute home defence and then Blaydon spurned three good opportunities by poor handling and it was kept to Captain Davidson to put Freddie Lockwood away and the second row, showing a remarkable turn of speed, and finished off from 35 metres and Jordan Carey added the extras.

After the break, the game became a little one sided and the opposition fell away and Rob Lenderyou cleverly put Sean Pyle in for Carey to convert and then Lenderyou again was prominent being involved in a superb three quarter movement which was winger Jack Appleton touch down in the corner. Surprisingly, the next score was from the visitors who on a rare visit to the Blaydon half, saw No. 8 Richard Pearl drive over. However, it was not long before Blaydon were back on the score sheet when another length of the field move allowed Alex Clarke to put in Nathan Bailey to increase the home lead.

With time running out, Blaydon ran in 2 final tries, firstly following an interception by the prominent Lenderyou, as the visitors tried to run out of defence and then leading try scorer Harry Borthwick picked up from a ruck, outracing the home defence, to touch down between between the posts for Carey to add his third conversion.

In all, a much improved performance notwithstanding the early injuries, and better handling in the first period could have seen us out of sight by half time.

Next week sees a break in fixtures allowing some of our ‘walking wounded’ to recuperate and we are then away to BILLINGHAM who, similar to last season, have fallen away following the Christmas break losing 3 on the bounce.

This week’s results sees the top four, which includes ourselves, separated by 5 points and we have them all to play in the coming weeks.

JIM HUXLEY