This was a second versus third place clash in Durham & Northumberland 1, and Park’s win opens up a four point gap with games in hand, to stay in the play off spot and maintain pressure on leaders Hartlepool Rovers who won comfortably at home against Northern.
Overnight rain gave advantage to the heavier Horden pack, and it was the visitors who had all the pressure and possession in the first part of the game. Somewhat against the run of play Park scored an opportunist try, when skipper Brett Sylph got a boot to a dropped Horden pass, kicking the ball up field, with the home side backs giving chase. Fly half Thomas Turnbull displayed his soccer skills with a carefully weighted kick through and dribbled the ball over the line and dropped on it for his second try in consecutive weeks. Rutter’s conversion on 13 minutes gave Park a 7 – 0 lead.
The Welfare Park side had a chance to cut the deficit with a Turner penalty, but uncharacteristically he missed the difficult opportunity, with the ball falling short of the cross bar.
Park had several chances to go further ahead, possibly the best being a strong run by left wing Liam Blackburn, who brushed aside his opposite number, but was bundled into touch 5 metres from the Horden line.
Rutter extended Park’s lead with a penalty kick on the half hour, but Turner made amends for his earlier miss with a penalty on the stroke of half time to make the score 10 – 3 at the interval.
The sticky surface didn’t lend itself to flowing rugby, and Percy Park elected to keep the ball with the forwards who in the tight had the upper hand, as in the previous encounter with Horden back in October. On 46 minutes the visitors were offside in front of their posts, and Rutter stretched the lead with a well directed penalty kick.
Park had a period of pressure in the Horden 22, and were rewarded with a try, after Ali Blair had taken the ball to with five metres of the Horden line breaking several tackles along the way.Having retreived a clearance kick the Park right wing set up the ball close to the line with number 8 Brett Sylph powering over from short distance . Although Marcus Rutter missed the conversion attempt, he was on target with a penalty soon after when Horden were punished for a high tackle.
With time running out for the County Durham side, they had a five minute spell of sustained pressure on the Park line with their forwards battering at the door, which the home defence kept firmly shut, eventually clearing the lines, and on the final whistle, with some ten minutes of added time, Park had won 21 – 3.
There was no game this week for either the Pumas or Marauders, but the Lions won well at Prudhoe 31 – 3, under the guidance of club stalwa
rt and former captain Paul Jobson, thankful that his playing services weren’t required on the pitch, giving his old bones time to recover from the previous week’s exertions.