NORTH 1 EAST
GUISBOROUGH 15 – 20 PERCY PARK
The league campaign for 2015/16 started with a win on the road, in a fast paced game that Park edged at the end with superior fitness. The 1st XV and Lions travelled to Belmangate with a handful of supporters on the coach and others to follow in cars down the A19, to this picturesque venue.
Guisborough had an impressive home record, not having lost in 3 years and are new boys to the league having won promotion as champions of Durham & Northumberland 1 last season.
The game start in bright sunshine but a cold wind blew across the pitch giving kickers from both sides some trouble with kicks out of hand. The home side got the best possible start as they crossed the line for a try after 2 minutes with Christian Pollock going over for the unconverted score.
Park hit back with a penalty from Alex Richards, on eight minutes, but soon after were reduced to 14 men as Karl Thompson was unlucky to be sent to the sin bin for what the referee termed an accidental block in the red zone when Guisborough were mounting an attack down the left flank.
Determined tackling kept the home side from adding to their points tally, with Guisborough guilty of kicking away some good possession when they may have been better served using their useful back 3 with ball in hand.
The rest of the first half was relatively uneventful and end 5 – 3 with the home side just ahead.
Percy Park took a slender lead early in the second period with another Alex Richards penalty after Phil Shields was sin binned for a not releasing the tackled player close to the line when Park looked to have gone over for a try in the left hand corner.
Guisborough scored down the right hand wing despite being short-handed with the Park defence at sixes and sevens. With 2 of the Park back line in a ruck, 5 metres from touch, a gap opened that the home side gratefully exploited and Ryan Mitchell scored after running 40 metres. Pollock kicked the extras for a 12 – 6 advantage on 47 minutes.
Although the home side seemed on top, gaps which weren’t there in the first hour of the game suddenly appeared as tiredness crept in, and Olly Gilmore exploited a break in the Guisborough defence to snipe over for a try with 68 minutes of the game gone. Alex Richards kicked Park ahead 12 – 13 with the conversion.
Park were now in the ascendancy and with the home side running out of defenders after a series of rucks and mauls, Joe Glacken crossed the freshly applied whitewash in the right hand corner. Alex Richards maintained his 100% record and kicked a superb conversion from the touch line to take Park into a 12 – 20 lead with only a couple of minutes remaining.
After all their efforts it looked as though Guisborough would be denied even a losing bonus. Having been awarded a scrum on the Park 22, a dull moment of petulance saw the ball kicked away and the home side were awarded an early Christmas present in the form of a very kickable penalty which they duly took to take at least one point from the game.
On an eventful bus journey back to Park, coach Lome Fa’atau treated the players to a Samoan Haka, which was every bit as fearsome as one of his half time team talks
GUISBOROUGH 22 – 34 PERCY PARK LIONS
The second XV game kicked off earlier than the first XV to give the players a chance to watch the second half of either the game on the adjacent pitch or the England Ireland game on TV. Guisborough started brightly with 2 early tries for a 12 – 0 lead before the Lions shook of the cobwebs and started to play. With skipper Steve Lenehan on holiday, Josh Lake stepped in as captain and led by example with 2 first half tries.
Chris the Tank Reekie’s weight loss program now sees him a slimed down Sherman rather than a full blown Tiger and although he scored a try had to leave the field for a visit to James Cook Hospital with a badly dislocated pinky.
Joe Cassidy and Harry Brodie also crossed the line for tries with Harry also kicking 2 conversions. The final try of the game came with Mark Hall taking several defenders with him over the line. In the resulting pile up one of the Guisborough players suffered a serious leg injury so the game was ended a few minutes early.