Rosslyn Park 46 Blaydon 22

When these sides met at Crow Trees earlier in the season Park had all the play but went down 13-0. Yesterday on home turf they again had the best of the possession but this time used the ball to good effect, particularly just after the interval when some rapid scoring took the game away from Blaydon.

Up to that point the visitors were only 5 points adrift and very much in the game, but disappointingly on the wrong side of some dubious refereeing decisions.

Park got off to a cracking start when Blaydon failed to secure the kick-off ball and paid the price when No8 Hugo Ellis touched down in the corner. Home fly-half Scott Sneddon added the conversion and in no time Ellis  crashed over again from forward pressure.

Blaydon grabbed their first score when Jason Smithson crossed the line from a driving maul, his 23rd of the campaign and 11th in the last 5 games. Brett Connon added the extras and after he and Sneddon had exchanged penalties it was 15-10 to the home side at the break and everything to play for.

But then it all went wrong for Blaydon as Park ran in further tries through Paul McKay, Harry Ellerington, Tom Whitley and Andrew Henderson advancing the score to 39-10, scoring at will whenever they got into the visitors half.

In between the scores however Blaydon had lots of pressure and were final rewarded when Park collapsed a maul just as it was crossing the line and a penalty try resulted.

Connon was on target again and soon after Blaydon moved it wide for Tom Grimes to touch down in the corner.

Another opportunity went begging when Blaydon knocked on with a 3 man overlap awaiting, but the damage had really been done in the Rosslyn Park purple patch.

 

John Brennan