North One East

West Leeds 52- Percy Park

Percy Park Blues at Blue Hill Lane

On Saturday 8^th October Percy Park travelled to Blue Hill Lane the home of West Leeds RUFC for an eagerly awaited first senior fixture between the two sides.  With West Leeds showing impressive form in the League, Percy Park knew they were in for a tough test. However they too were confident in their own form and arrived with the strong belief that a result could be achieved. And the game started well for the away side. The Park forwards were dominant in the set piece with the ‘West’ scrum going backwards. The forwards were also dominant in ‘the loose’ punching holes in the Leeds defence creating forward ball for the Park backs to work with. With the Park defence snuffing out any real possession ‘West’ had the signs were there that this was going to be our day. A thought reflected by a very partisan Leeds crowd who were heard to say ‘Crikey we are going to have to up our game today these lads are good’.

Yet it was ‘West’ who drew first blood  when Park were penalised almost on the half way line for not releasing in the tackle and the resulting wind assisted free kick at goal crossed the bar to earn the three points. From the restart Park retained the ball and normal service resumed and after a period of impressive ball retention, which had the Leeds team scrambling back toward their line, ‘West’ were penalised for a high tackle. With the wind against him Parks Phil Morse opted to kick for the corner. With ‘line out’ ball secured an impressive catch and drive saw lock Karl Thompson peel off , break through three attempted tackles to power over the West Leeds line. Placing the ball near to the posts to enable a comfortable conversion for Phil Morse.

NORTH ONE EAST

Malton and Norton 17 - 40 Percy Park

Often a title of an article can tell the tale of a game in a few words. Words that can attract a reader to read on or can be enough for someone to acknowledge that Percy Park won the game and that ‘Man of the Match’ Charlie Greswold was influential in that victory. The use of the word ‘sizzling’ can also be used to attract the attention of the reader yet on this occasion the use of that adjective is more than justified as some of the Park scores had the crowd of their feet and even had one Malton supporter uttering the single word ‘Wow’…..and in that paragraph lies the question on everybody’s lips both from home and away support.. ‘What happened against Huddersfield?’ I guess we will never know the answer to that question but I for one am glad to put that result behind us for on this day we were good and on occasions very good!!

From the off the game exploded into life with a Park side looking to keep the ball alive and move the same with pace against a Malton side who loved to ‘pick and go’. Five minutes into the game Park turned over possession from the Malton pack and moved the ball along a back line; moving at real pace. With ball in hand full back Jamie Wrigley, finding himself on the wing, outstripped the Malton defence and when the covering tackle eventually arrived he made a sublime pass to the supporting Lome Faatau who in turn slipped the ball to Charlie Greswold to score under the posts. With Michael Grove converting Park were quickly into the groove and you could tell that Park had arrived at Old Malton Road with steely intent.

North One East 

Percy Park 10 - 42 Huddersfield YMCA

This game can be compared to following Newcastle United, with the Percy Park faithful adorned in their ‘black and white’ colours travelling in their masses to the Preston Avenue Stadium in eager anticipation of an energetic performance against a Huddersfield YMCA side who had yet to register a win in North One East. The sun had its ‘hat on’, the bar was full of cheerful noisy chatter , the beer was flowing and as the ‘lads’ took to the pitch the crowd followed to voice their support, anticipating that their heroes would deliver an entertaining victory. And akin to watching Newcastle, on this occasion, that was as good as it got!! Percy Park failed to get going against a good organised Huddersfield side who looked the hungrier from the off. As the President stated in his match day notes ‘never go off the form book, it will only bite you’…and boy did it bite the Park faithful.

From the kick off Huddersfield were impatient and looking to stretch the game at any opportunity bringing their full back into the line to cause as much broken play as they could. Their back row started the game with intent by disrupting anything Park tried to orchestrate. The stage was set and it was with no great surprise that on 12 minutes Huddersfield opened the scoring with hooker Hill finishing a powerful forward drive. The try remained unconverted.

North One East

West Hartlepool 19 - 19 Percy Park

In a game sponsored by Marston’s Brewery and two teams willing to throw the ball about a bit you might have expected a game full of spicy, sharp, bright, fresh, zippy, flavours yet what we got was a game that gave us a flat and still beverage with many looking at the bottom of the pint glass feeling very frustrated and muttering ‘was that it’. As in all things fermentable it takes a good brewer to get the recipe right and what we got was a Durham Society referee who served up what can be best described as a glass of flat southern beer despite the best efforts of all the players; and that frustration was felt by all around the Catcote Road Ground.

With a stiff breeze giving ‘West’ a notable first half advantage they were soon off the mark when Will Hilditch crossed after a lineout on the Park ‘5’. A line out resulting from a territorial boot down the field with the ball falling kindly to the Hartlepool player allowing him to nip over and score in the corner. With West looking to take territorial advantage at every opportunity Park found themselves camped in their own ‘22’. This season Percy Park are made of sterner stuff and instead of folding they looked to gain turnover ball at every opportunity and as a consequence procession was gained and full back Toby Davison took off at the gallop running the full length of the field to level the scores.