Westoe gift-wrap win for visitors
WESTOE all but gift-wrapped this victory and presented it on a platter to grateful opponents.
They have been guilty of conceding some soft tries since their elevation this season to National 2 North, but the one that finally cost them the game had the texture of a blancmange.
A hurried clearance under pressure from inside their own 22 was comfortably pouched by replacement flanker Jordan Pearson who, not demonstrating any particular speed or stealth, simply ran 30 metres along the right flank totally unmolested to touch down. He must have thought he was dreaming.
Another replacement, fly-half Mick Smith, converted well from a distance to give his side – in arrears since the end of the first quarter – a solitary point lead which they grimly defended until the final whistle sounded 15 minutes later.
Four tries of their own and the closeness of the scores meant that Westoe earned a couple of bonus points, but it was scant compensation for squandering the golden and morale-boosting chance of their second successive win.
If they had plucked their first victory from the jaws of defeat with a stirring late rally against hosts Loughborough Students the previous Saturday, the reverse was the case here and captain Gareth Nesbit was in no mood to disguise his displeasure.
He said: "You can't get away from the fact that this was very disappointing.
"It was particularly annoying because everybody knows we should have won it. We will now have to take a good, hard look at ourselves.
"In the first half we were in control, and we played some really good stuff in all aspects of our game.
"But yet again we gave away soft tries. That it is just not acceptable, and has to be sorted out.
"I still say this is a good side and for substantial periods, we showed what we are capable of doing. In the second half, though, we let ourselves down badly.
"Perhaps we got a little over confident and tried to be a bit too clever. Whatever it was, we must learn from this and move on."
It did not help that the balance of the backs was upset by the absence of fly-half Charlie Rayner, emerging as key man after being recruited from Blaydon, who was attending the funeral of a close friend.
This third defeat means that the Dunes Adventure Island-sponsored Shieldsmen have slipped a place to third from the bottom of the 16-team division.
They got off to a shaky start during which the Grasshoppers took the lead when James Williams caught the defence napping and passed to fellow centre Tom Hughes, who touched down beside the posts to give fly-half Mark Edwards a routine conversion.
Jolted into action, Westoe had the better of things for the remainder of the half, flanker Aaron Myers, no 8 Michael Ellery and centre James Clark all diving over to finish off fleet, sure-handed attacks which, together with a conversion and two penalties by full-back James Phillips, kept the points count mounting.
Only Darren Wilson, the visitors' nimble fly-half and captain, rained on their parade by dodging and dancing from the back of a scrum through seemingly immobile defenders to score, but the Wood Terrace faithful were well satisfied with a 26-14 lead at the interval.
Thereafter, however, the cool-headed Lancastrians got the upper hand, scoring a couple of penalties before being handed a bonus when an overthrown Westoe line-out ball gave them possession and a series of strong driving mauls on the goal-line ended with full-back Owen McKenna going over.
Winger Chris Clark restored the home team's fortunes somewhat soon afterwards with a well-worked try beside the left corner flag from a scrum mid-way in the Preston half, but then came the Pearson and Smith coup de grace.
* The Seconds were narrowly beaten 19-18 in a hard and evenly-fought Candy League contest at Morpeth, their points coming from tries by winger James Walker and prop Nick Whitley, a John McFarlane conversion and two penalties by Chris Laycock.
* The Thirds fought hard but were no match for a fast and well-drilled Northern Seconds side.
Despite scoring first through a try by flanker Jordan Coates, the South Tynesiders subsided to a 43-5 defeat.
To add to their woe, flanker Ollie Douthwaite, accidentally injured in a tackle, was taken to hospital with a suspected fractured skull.
* The Colts, a try down within seconds of the kick-off, rallied splendidly to run in 10 tries and win 52-5 in their Under-18 League game at Northern.
Centre Sam Hughes scored a hat-trick and other tries were scored by Michael Thompson (two), Michael Potts, Daniel Rundle, A Sohata, James Robinson and Lewis Eglintine, with Chris Baynes kicking a conversion.
* The Fourths' Durham Junior League match at Washington was called off when their opponents could not raise a side.
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Weather for South Shields
Friday 25 May 2012
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