Birkenhead Park FC

Park Tigers travelled to Bowden on Saturday afternoon, on a cold and wet day to play on a cold, wet and muddy pitch.

While most of our Irish JMU contingent had returned home for christmas, we in turn welcomed back students Jordan Addison and Adam Neale. Patches who has returned from Atlantis & Little Joe from went AWOL for the weekend to help us out. In addition Windsor land owner Joseph Hugh Winstanley Pollard, having not played since late September through injury also agreed to have a run.

Me & Tyler didnt arrive at Bowden until well into the 1st half. Park were playing up a slight muddy hill and the scores were 7-7. I was informed that scrum half Lawrence Stansfield scored for Park after picking up at the base of a ruck. The cold, the mud, the hill and sloppy hands and good defence from both teams, but in particular from Pollard & Patches, kept the scores level at the end of the half.

At half time we made a couple of changes, swapping Adam with Adam & deciding we needed some real pace in the pack, Addo with Tyler. Playing down the muddly slope we began to look a little more threatening.

In fact, we should have taken the lead shortly into the half when Pollard broke the Bowden line & hurtled towards the Bowden full back. We all rubbed our hands fully expecting to see the full back launched into orbit and Pollard cross the try line. However a fanatastic tackle from the 15, not only stopped Pollard, but sent him limping from the pitch.

Further pressure from a series of scrums close to the Bowden try line should have led to a further score, but we were let down by poor decision making, more slopping hands, a tendancy to over complicate things & to be fair more good defence from Bowden.

Yet it was far from one way traffic, with good play from Bowden, in particular the baldy back row & centres regularly forcing Park onto the back foot. However we always mangaged to clear our lines & following a catch & drive from a line out in the Bowden 22, Parks fowards drove towards the Bowden line. Sensing the drive was losing momentum, young Lawrence took the ball and scrambled over the Bowden line for his 2nd score of the day, taking the scores to 12-7 to Park.

More solid defence kept Bowden away from our line, as they struggled up the muddy hill. Tyler, A great example to all the youngsters at Park, illustrated why he is known as ‘Parks Paceman’. He sprinted 10 metres to catch the dangerous Bowden 13 with a great enveloping tackle, taking both man & ball. The referee, refusing to believe Tyler was able to cover that space of ground decided he must have been offside & rather harshly gave a penalty to Bowden.

Nevertheless, we still kept Bowden out & shortly before full time, following a further series of drives by the Tigers pack, we bundled over the Bowden try line close to the right touch line, taking the game out of Bowdens reach at 17-7.

Man of the Match: Lawrence Stansfield