Lymm 34 Billingham 19 by Neil Allen
There was a definite end of season feel to proceedings at Crouchley Lane as Lymm turned on the style to beat Billingham 34-19.
The sun was shining, a young Portuguese touring team played curtain raisers against Lymm & Heaton Moor U’12’s & U’14’’s and the smell of burgers from the barbecue wafted over the bumper crowd. With nothing to play for, both sets of supporters hoped the players would capture the carnival atmosphere.
There was further excitement at the prospect of seeing the England under 18 half-backs Alex Mitchell and Mark Dixon playing in tandem for the first time for the first fifteen, a culmination of over 10-years of playing together for Lymm. At the other end of the spectrum two Lymm players would be playing their final games. Andy Rowley retiring to take up a career in the Police and Dave Williamson, who has probably had as many comebacks as Frank Sinatra, assuring everyone he was finally hanging up his boots.
The game started as everyone hoped with both sides throwing the ball about. Billingham who are renowned as a team who like to run the ball through the backs showed why their reputation is well deserved. The away team came out of the blocks all guns blazing. After an early bombardment Lymm finally cleared the ball to touch but there was no let up as Billingham took a quick line-out and with men over, the Billingham full-back strolled over to take the lead 5-0.
Not to be outdone Lymm composed themselves and began to get into the game showing their own creativity and pace. The young Lymm half-backs showing a great understanding, began to pull the strings and some crisp exchanges saw Joe Knowles go over to make the score 7-5. Lymm were becoming increasingly dominant, with Alex Mitchell at the centre of everything, only mistakes through trying to force the pace stopped further Lymm scores. On the half hour Ross White emerged from a ruck and strong run and off-load to centre Jake Ecclestone saw the deadlock broken with a score under the posts, 14-5 to Lymm.
For the last 10-minutes of the half Billingham came back, but good Lymm defence and untimely knock-ons from the opposition meant there was no further score. Billingham got their reward at the start of the second half when a good switch and simple run around saw the centre go under the sticks to make the score 14-12.
Lymm came back again and for twenty minutes blitzed Billingham with four unanswered high quality scores. Firstly a quick tap by Mitchell and link up with Dixon saw Rowley go over. Then the try of the game, a classic scrum-half score as Mitchell picked up from the base of the scrum on the half-way line, blistering pace and two dummies later without a hand laid on him he was over in the corner. Rowley quickly followed up with a second score, signing-off his Lymm career in style. Finally after some Billingham pressure, their attack broke-down and Tom Bray found himself with the whole of the pitch ahead of him, not relishing the prospect of going the full length of the field Bray handed on to Ecclestone his younger centre partner, who finally fed winger Cormac Nolan to score, 34-12 and the game was up.
Credit to Billingham, they were not in the mood for their season to end just yet and the last ten minutes of the game saw them attacking the Lymm line. The Lymm defence stood firm but with three minutes to go Billingham finally went over for a close quarter score and a deserved consolation try to make the final score 34-19.
Both sides put on a great display of rugby with 8 of the 9 tries scored by the backs the carnival mood had certainly been translated onto the pitch. A final word for Dave Williamson, who has been a great servant and crowd favourite at Lymm and someone who always ‘did it his way’, but when he was caught by the opposition prop today he knew his decision to call it a day was the right one.
As ever with Lymm the season ends with a great spectacle of rugby and the thoughts of what might one day be, if the mid-season blues can ever be remedied……..
Squad: 1) Dan Horton, 2) Ross White, 3) Nick Ashton, 4) Aaron Rasheed, 5) Sion Williams (C), 6) Jake Ashall, 7) Sam Mullarkey, 8) Adam Bray, 9) Alex Mitchell, 10) Mark Dixon, 11) Cormac Nolan, 12) Tom Bray, 13) Jake Ecclestone, 14) Dave Williamson, 15) Joe Knowles, 16) Joe McGrail, 17) Andy Rowley, 18) Mike Auden
