NORTH 1 EAST
PERCY PARK 44 – 20 DURHAM CITY
After an opening day defeat at Penrith RFC, Percy Park were looking to bounce back straight away at home against recently promoted Durham City. City had picked up a couple of points from their first game of the season drawing 17 all with another recently promoted team Bradford and Bingley.
Park made three changes to the team that travelled to Penrith, in the forwards Ethan Wilson came in for the departing Joey Clarke who impressed in pre-season but is unfortunately off to university, while in the backs Park welcomed back John Scott at scrum half who missed last week’s trip due to losing a front tooth, Alex Tilley moved up from full back to inside centre to replace Sam Jobson and Lome Faatau made his first start of the season at full back.
On a perfect day for rugby it was Park who kicked off with no wind to speak of. Two quick penalty’s took City from their own 22 into the home sides half, after several phases another penalty allowed City to take their first shot at goal which they converted to take them into a early 0-3 lead.
From the restart Park took possession and played through the phases which nearly saw Michael Langlands barge over in the corner only to be pinged for a knock on from the resulting ruck. All day Park showed their dominance in the scrum winning almost every scrum on opposition ball, and from the first scrum of the day did just that. City were penalised for being offside and Park elected for another scrum, when the push over didn’t look on, the ball was spun wide for winger Jimmy Baldwin to score in the corner, conversion missed, 5-3 to Park.
City found themselves back on attack but were met by a wall of black and white, from the start you could see Park working hard to get off the line and this line speed was to pay off when fly half Phil Morse was to intercept a pass to run in from 50 metres to score Parks second try of the day, Morse added the conversion to his try. 12-3 to Park.
Park swiftly made their way back up field from the kick off, and again nearly scored in the corner only to knock on 5 metres out. Parks power at the scrum saw them take the ball against the head and run over the line for what should have been a try only for City’s back row to break off and kill the ball. Referee David Charlton was left with the easy decision of a penalty try and City were lucky to remain with 15 men still on the field. Conversion good, 19-3 to Park.
A slick move by the City back’s let their centre go through untouched under the posts before a penalty by Morse ended the half 22-10, to Park.
It was ten minutes into the second half before the scoreboard was touched after a line break by hard running Guy Pike, the pace and power of the outside centre earned him a nice try from 60 metres out, conversion made, 29-10 to Park.
Three quick tries followed, firstly an incept for City as Langlands at eight took it blind and looked to put Pike away only for the pass to fall into City’s fly half’s hand to race into the corner. Conversion missed 29-15, to Park. Some quick feet and a couple of show and goes put Baldwin in space and behind the line with just the full back to beat, Langlands was on hand to take the pass and score close to the posts. Conversion missed 34-15, to Park. A failed chip and chase from City gifted stand in captain Alex Tilly the easiest of tries, with the conversion made Park were now up 41-15. A late penalty from replacement fly half Todd put Park into a 44-15 lead.
But City weren’t quite done and with the last place of the game, a couple of sloppy missed tackles gifted City a try in the corner. The conversion missed and the final whistle meant Park won 44-20.
Plenty of positives but still lots to work on, a well earned 5 points never the less. With the Lions having a good 33-12 win over Northern, there will be no doubt plenty of competition at this week’s training for first team spots.
Next week the 1st XV are away to promotion favourites Alnwick while the 2nds are home to Alnwick’s second team.