Friendly
Percy Park RFC Lions 85 Northern RFC Wanderers 15
Tank rolls over Northern
Northern featuring Park ‘old boy’ Callum Garrick (great to see you Callum wrong colour shirt though!) came up against a formidable Lions team in the sun at Preston Avenue on Saturday. To be fair the visitors were much weakened from their usual outfit but that should take nothing away from this dazzling performance.
The early encounters were ‘nip and tuck’ but after 5 minutes Northern hacked clear , Andrew Walker retrieved the ball on the ten metre line and then danced through four tackles to finish under the posts , converting his score 7-0 . But Northern bounced back, for the second time Park let the kick off bounce and the visitors capitalised on the territory 7-5.
Northern then applied some considerable pressure but were undone when Alex Midgeley broke from his own half to score; the conversion was good. On 20 minutes 14-5 to Park. Northern were not out of this though, they continued to attack and following a series of penalties they took the conservative option in front of the posts 14-8
Seven minutes later Percy Park had a scrum on the 22. Eddie Saint picked up and a deft shimmy sent the defender the wrong way. Converted again 21-8.
Then in a 5 minute onslaught Northern Wanderers imploded helped considerably by Chris ‘Tank’ Reekie having a real purple moment and rolling all from under his feet. On 29 minutes Jamie Wrigley took the ball on the half way line, stepped the last man and went in under the posts, converted again 28-8. Two minutes later following a quick kick-off return Josh Hedley ran in from 25 metres, kick converted again from wide on the right 35-5.
Next to get in on the action was Chris Reekie followed quickly by Ben Anderson who went half the length of the field, to turn round 49-8 at half time.
Northern were down to the bare bones having picked up injuries too. Remarkably they were the first to respond in the second half and went over for a well-deserved try 47-13.
Further tries were soon to come though, Mark Sanderson smashed his way through to dog in from 25 metres, converted again 54-13. Then another great move down the blind side, Cam Young threw Andrew Walker a pass, a neat inside ball to Josh Hedley who gave the most precise offload to Ross Young to cross. Kick well-made again 61-13. Northern were falling in numbers and Sam Hutley did the decent thing and bolstered the visitors ranks.
Then Jamie Wrigley popped up again with a brace of tries. The last one gifted to him by Ben Anderson who elected against buying a hat trick jug
and lastly from Nathan Coxon to round off a welcome return to rugby. Final score 85-15