Percy Park 18 - 25 Pontefract
The conditions couldn’t have been better for a game of rugby, warm, bright, sunny, no wind to speak of, shirt sleeve order in fact, such a shame the game didn’t live up to the pre- match expectation.
A penalty apiece with 11 minutes gone, with Rutter for Park then Dean for Pontefract, then on 16 minutes someone pressed the self destruct button. With Park on their own line and with a lineout won, instead of leathering the ball off the pitch, Park’s back line reverted to schoolboy rugby, with Phil Morse making a half break then giving it to Ollie Gilmore in the centre who tried a speculative offload which was snapped up by the opposition who spun the ball wide for Paul Nowac to score in the left hand corner.
The conversion was missed but Park were down 3 – 8, until the boot of Rutter reduced the deficit to 6 – 8, then Anth Dunn spent ten minutes in the bin for a late tackle as if the situation was not hard enough with fifteen players on the pitch. Ponte missed a drop goal attempt, but Dean kicked another penalty on 30 minutes. Thankfully for Park, Rutter was keeping them in contention, and the Park full back converted another penalty two minutes later.
Pontefract were in the ascendancy and had a chance for a try when a chip through just had too much weight on it for fullback Bateman to score. The visitors did score before the end of the half when from an innocuous line out just inside Park’s 22, a tapped ball off the top found the hands of scrum half Dave Thorpe. Then a gap big enough to drive a John Deere tractor through opened up for the Ponte number nine to run unopposed to the try line. Dean added salt to the wounds and Park now trailed 9 – 18, which was the score at half time.
In the second half another two penalties from Marcus Rutter kept Park in the hunt, and the visitors started getting a little jittery. There were still twenty minutes of the game to go when Park were awarded a kickable penalty in front of the posts which would have levelled the scores. Then came the dullest of dull moments ; Andy Dunn decided he would remind the infringing Pontefract player that he shouldn’t lie over the ball, and referee Tony Parlett had no option but to show the Park hooker a yellow card and reverse the penalty to let Pontefract off the hook.
Three minutes later Pontefract were awarded a penalty which they kicked to touch near the Park line and from the resulting line out drove the ball over the try line for Derek Eves to touch down. The Dean conversion meant the visitors were lead 25 -15, and Park now looked out of it.
Rutter kicked his sixth penalty of the day, to reduce the losing margin, but three tries to none tells it’s own story, and Park had lost for the third consecutive week, but this time at home where they hadn’t previously lost since April 2008.