A Bad Day At Black Rock

Northwich were soon deep into Manchester’s 22 but a knock on promised some respite with a defensive first scrum. Unfortunately the scrum was unstable from the start and when the ball bobbled out the attacking 9 was the quicker and the ball pounced on for a try within three minutes, converted to 7-0.

If there was an element of bad luck in that, then the second try from the restart certainly deserved to double the score. The ball was received, then quickly and neatly moved through the hands to evade the Manchester XV for a daunting 14-0 deficit with just over five minutes played.

With Manchester’s early scrums moving backwards at an alarming rate, an easy Northwich penalty was turned down to test the scrum further. The scrum was found wanting and a routine run under the posts extended the lead to 21-0.

When the Manchester backs did get their hands on the ball they looked useful and a cool show-and-go from Dean Hogg almost fooled the home defence. With some momentum, Manchester recycled the ball and again it moved wide towards the waiting Hogg on the left wing. Bizarrely his run in was scuppered as the ball was unsuccessfully intercepted by a team mate out of position. The resulting scrum set up a neat move to secure a bonus point for Northwich in the first quarter (28-0), a fifth try arriving to make it 35-0 in the first half hour.

From this position it would be disingenuous to say that ‘we was robbed’ but Northwich got a little more than their adventure deserved when they then broke from their own line, outrunning the referee to such an extent that he could not reasonably judge a ‘flat’ pass or witness the grounding that Manchester thought they had prevented. Nonetheless a 100 metre run with the ball deserves some reward (42-0) and a dispirited Manchester team soon conceded the final try of the half to turn around 47-0 down.

It would have been difficult to rouse most teams from this battering by both wind and opposition, but a resolute third quarter finished scoreless with Manchester looking the more likely to score. The breakthrough depressingly went against the immediate run of play with another adventurous attack from behind Northwich’s own try line. This was an impressive score to reach the 50-point mark and an excellent conversion from out wide and into the wind earned a 54-0 lead.

Manchester were soon back on the attack, rejecting an easy penalty for a line out just a few metres from the line. The chance was blown, quite literally, when the instruction was given to throw to the back of the lineout. It wasn’t a poor throw, but on such a blustery day the inevitable happened and the ball drifted towards the opposition. This turned into an attacking line out even from that position, with Manchester now completely wrong-footed. Another long run to the posts with the Manchester defenders struggling to catch up closed the day’s scoring at 61-0.

To their credit, Manchester continued to look for a consolation try but on the day, wherever they happened to be on the pitch, it was always Northwich who looked the more likely to score.

Yes, the second half was much better, but for much of the first it looked as if this game was the rusty return from the winter break rather than the previous week’s...

Photo from Twitter@MattSaylePhoto