HAVING already enjoyed their two longest away trips of the season, Lymm
were faced with a much shorter trip to the Wirral on Saturday to renew
their longstanding rivalry with newly promoted Wirral RFC – a team they
had not played since early 2010 and came away with a 17-46 victory.
With both teams coming of the back of good wins the previous week, this match-up had the potential to act as an early season reality check for both clubs. With the early morning deluge having abated, visitors to the Memorial Ground were greeted with an excellent pitch, warm sunshine and a strong wind blowing down the pitch – perfect conditions for entertaining rugby – we were not disappointed.
Lymm’s team showed considerable change in the forwards from last week’s 8. The rotation of props brought Nick Ashton into the starting line-up and allowed Jordan Widdrington, fully recovered from his summer trip to A&E, a place on the bench; Ross White, last week’s stand-in openside, was now back in his familiar position of hooker; the second row partnership of Captain Sion Williams and James Yates were both back from a week away, allowing Aaron Rasheed to start on the bench; and in the back row Sam Mullarkey, also returning from a week away, and Jack Harper, starting his first match for the First XV, kept the talismanic Adam Bray company. In sharp contrast the backs were unchanged.
Lymm elected to play into the wind and, following what coach Fletcher described afterwards as an abysmal warm-up, promptly spilt the kick-off putting themselves under immediate pressure. Wirral’s first attack was to set the tone for the rest of the afternoon as their big centres tried to make inroads into the Lymm defence only to find no chinks. Indeed the first 7 minutes was all Wirral, with Lymm defending stoically, and aggressively, on their own 22. However, when Lymm did get their chance they were clinical. Prodigal son Luke Emmitt punched a hole up the middle and linked up with a rampaging Adam Bray; the ball then went out to the right wing where full back Dave Williamson made yards; importantly the ball was recycled quickly out to the left wing where, with good hands, left wing Mark Wells was handed an overlap, clinically scoring a classic wingers try. The wide out conversion was narrowly missed by Cormac Nolan. 5-0.
Wirral again went on the attack using the wind to their advantage, but for all their efforts only registered a penalty on 22 minutes when Emmitt was carded in front of his own posts for an over-exuberant tackle. 5-3. Down to 14, but Lymm were in no mood to sit back and were rewarded for their endeavour with a converted try on 27 minutes after Baker had seen an opportunity from a quick tap penalty. 12-3. Lymm almost saw out their period of numerical inferiority without conceding a try but, on 32 minutes the Wirral left-wing found himself in the centre, matched up against a couple of Lymm forwards, gliding past them to score under the posts. 12-10. Time for cool heads now and Lymm obliged. A Nolan penalty on 39 minutes from 22 metres was followed by a third, excellent Lymm try. Quick ball off the top at a line out 35 metres out, was fed to Adam Bray in the centre who showed his pace and strength to punch through two defenders before perfectly drawing the full-back with a pass to Mullarkey who scored under the posts. The half ended 22-10.
The second half started in similar fashion to the first. This time Wirral made a hash of the kick off, putting themselves under pressure. They were only able to clear the ball to the halfway and Lymm after two or three yard-gaining forward sorties spun the ball wide to the left with purpose and speed. A Tom Bray run-around with his centre and a beautifully floated pass put full-back Williamson into space, he made good yards and, a couple of years ago might have scored it himself, but now older and wiser he put a precision pass into the hands of left wing Andy Rowley who scooted round under the posts. 29-10 and a try bonus point in the bag. The next 10 minutes looked very similar to the early stages of the first half; Wirral had all the ball and Lymm were doing all the defending – the only difference being that this was all now happening on the Wirral 22. A Nolan penalty on 52 minutes extended the lead to 32-10 and then on 57 minutes Tom Bray, who was now really enjoying the space and sun and wind on his back, got the backline moving again this time combining brilliantly with Emmitt to put Nolan into a gap leaving him to beat the fullback on the inside and score under the posts. 39-10. The final Lymm try was scored on 65 minutes when adroit thinking by Rowley put Baker under the posts from a quick line out. 46-10. Lymm almost scored another to reach 50 points but were adjudged to have been held up over the line. The match ended being played out in the Lymm 22. Yates took a team card and Wirral scored another converted try in the final minute from a line-out drive.
The view on the terraces was that this had been as complete a Lymm performance as had been seen for a while with defence at its foundation – indeed no one could remember a missed Lymm tackle.
Coach Fletcher was also in an ebullient mood “We stuck to our game plan which was really pleasing. Solid defence combined with speed, purpose and flair in attack” which I think is “coach-speak” for “The lads dun gud!”
Team: 1) Nick Ashton; 2) Ross White; 3) Mike Auden; 4) Sion Williams (C); 5) James Yates; 6) Jack Harper; 7) Sam Mullarkey; 8) Adam Bray; 9) Tom Baker; 10) Tom Bray; 11) Cormac Nolan; 12) Giles Dugdale; 13) Luke Emmitt; 14) Mark Wells; 15) Dave Williamson; 16) Jordan Widdrington; 17) Aaron Rasheed; 18) Andy Rowley
