North One East

Percy Park RFC 17 v Morpeth RFC 12

Storm Deidre did her best to dampen spirits but Park prevail and vanquish ‘The Mighty Peth’.

After last week’s grim result away at Cleckheaton Percy Park knew they had to put in a good shift in to beat a high flying Morpeth side. As kick off approached Storm Deidre began to show her mettle as she blew a bitter cold tempest across the Preston Avenue pitch. An icy squall that had all shivering in their boots. With many a spectator preferring the clubhouse to hugging a friend, the players took to the pitch and to their credit produced a great exhibition of nail biting rugby that held the interest right to the final whistle.

From the off Park kicked deep into Morpeth’s half and held a high defensive line that kept ‘the mighty Peth’ inside or on their 22. Sustained pressure that brought the knock on and turn over ball. With possession won scrum half Will Haskins fed the eager Charlie Greswold who barrelled through the line to set up the overlap. With Morpeth flapping and struggling to cover the defensive ground Park moved the ‘cherry and whites’ left to right with some punishing carries before settling on an area just to the left of the visitor’s posts. And there they hammered until the Morpeth defence creaked, groaned and gave way with Mark Barry, keeping his body position low, punching over the line to score. With the try converted Percy Park were ahead by 7 points with 3 minutes played.

North 1 East

Cleckheaton 43 – 5 Percy Park

Thoughts of a rare away win were given a dent even before Saturday when no fewer than 5 changes to the side that played so well against Scarborough the previous Saturday were announced. This is no disrespect to the lads who stepped into the breach to travel away to Moorend and represent Percy Park.

With Ash Smith and Ali Blair not available and 3 second rows in Josh Hedley, Austin Phillips and Karl Thompson out of the picture, Park had to call up Eddie Saint, Steven Dryden, Travis Boward and Kieran Sutherland with 2 of the 4 making their 1^stXV debuts. Will Haskins also returned to the side but started on the bench.

The game kicked off at 3pm due to the Cleck Christmas lunch and with less than 3 minutes on the clock the home side were on the score sheet from a catch and drive from a line out after Park were penalised and Dale Breakwell kicked to the corner. Cleckheaton had recently signed 2 disaffected West Leeds players in Breakwell and Danny Booth and both have made an immediate  impact of their fortunes.

Fly half Breakwell continued where he left off last week with a fine kicking display and converted the try in the corner to give his side a 7 – 0 lead even before many of the lunch time revellers had made their way to their seats in the stand.

Squally showers and a blustery wind didn’t make handling easy, and for the next 15 minutes Park held out the hosts. Park had a chance to go level in similar fashion to Cleck as they drove a maul 25 metres towards the line before the maul was collapsed and surprisingly the offending player was not shown a yellow card.

NORTH 1 EAST

Percy Park 23 – 23 Scarborough

After the game, Park skipper Jonny Dubois announced that Park had 2 targets for the day, the first being to maintain the 1stXV 100% league wins home records for the season and the second to raise a decent amount for the Rock4Olly foundation. Park came close to doing both, and it was a 88th minute penalty that denied the win and allowed league leaders Scarborough a draw and 2 points. On the second point ably assisted by Percy Park Under 14’s a collection, raffle, donations and tee-shirt sales raised over £1000 for Rock4Olly.

Park warmed up sporting local rival colours red in support of young Olly Liddle. Olly recently lost his mother to cancer and tragically was then diagnosed with leukaemia himself. Despite losing part of his leg in the resulting treatment the Rockcliff Under 14 player shows great spirit and is fighting the disease with support from all the local rugby community.

Park welcomed back skipper Jonny Dubois from injury, and Ash Smith started at fly-half. An injury last week to Will Haskins ruled him out, which allowed Oli Gilmore to return at scrum half.

A heavy overnight downpour continued, making conditions difficult for handling but both sides contributed to a good display of rugby. It was the visitors who scored first when Park were penalised for a high tackle and fly half Thomas Ratcliffe wearing the number 13 shirt kicked the penalty for a 0-3 lead on 2 minutes. Park had the chance to level the scores but Ash Smith’s penalty attempt hit the post.

Park did go ahead through an Ali Blair try coming off his wing to score in the opposite corner, but the try remained unconverted. Scarborough showed their resilience and why they were league leaders hitting back with a converted try 5 minutes later to go back in front 5-10.

An Ash Smith penalty then another try from Blair restored the home side’s lead and the Ash Smith conversion took Park into the break 15-10 ahead.