Marcus Rutter bagged 18 of Park’s points as they made it three from three in the league against Morpeth at Preston Avenue. It’s some time since Percy Park have beaten the Northumbrian side, but on Saturday were the better team and so deserved the victory and two league points.

Percy Park opened the scoring after only two minutes when Marcus Rutter kicked a penalty after the visitors were punished for not rolling away at the tackle, and for the next ten minutes, the home side applied pressure in the Morpeth half. Park didn’t press home their territorial advantage and then Tony Dunn was sin binned in front of the Morpeth posts for taking the law into his own hands.
With a man down Park held out well, until Matthew Jinks levelled the scores with a penalty on twenty minutes.

ILKLEY 12 – 39 PERCY PARK

Ilkley has to be one of the most picturesque places to play rugby. Conditions were bright and sunny and would have been ideal if not for Hurricane Bessie blowing across the pitch. In fact it was rather surreal watching the game on the stand side of the pitch with the wind at your back, hardly any sound was audible from the pitch, a bit like watching the telly with the sound turned off.

 

Park made a couple of enforced changes with Brett Sylph, Dave Griffiths and Greg Dixon all at a wedding, Michael Langlands came in to number 8, Ollie Gilmore in the centre, and Anthony Dunn was also back in the pack doing a good impersonation of Pudsey Bear with his head bandaged to protect his cauliflower ear.

 

Read more …Ilkley blown away

PERCY PARK 16 – 8 HARTLEPOOL ROVERS

The score line doesn’t reflect the chances that Park had to blow away Rovers, who before the kick off were lying second in the league with a 100% record, but fair dues to the visitors, they battled hard from start to finish, and at the end gave supporters 5 minutes of nail biting as 14 man Park held on for the win.

Park welcomed the return of George Purdy at tight head prop which gave added stability and experience in the front row, which had been lacking in the previous two weeks. In the backs Martin Shaw returned to the side as did Phil Morse who came in at fly half with Thomas Turnbull moving to the wing.

Given the choice of watching rugby on a Saturday afternoon and shopping with the wife, it’s normally a no brainer, But this week I have to say on reflection, the Metro Centre would have provided better sport. It was not until the 79^th minute when the first try was scored, up until then the game was sadly not much of a spectacle, with the score board ticking along courtesy of the fly half boots of Messrs Rutter and Foster.

Park welcomed the return of skipper Brett Sylph from injury, but were still without several key influential players who hopefully will be back in the side over the coming weeks. Percy Park opened the scoring with a Rutter penalty after 2 minutes after Gateshead had started the game with a kick off which didn’t go ten metres. From the resulting scrum, Park’s fly half Turnbull kicked to the corner, and the home side infringed after the line out giving Park the first penalty of an error strewn game.