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Roosters wings clipped

Roosters wings clipped

Andrew Quirke15 Jul 2012 - 07:58
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The top club in the RL East were toppled on Saturday by bottom of the table MK Wolves leading to a night of celebration.

Forget the Swedish House Mafia Concert at the nearby MK Bowl, Emerson Valley was the place to be on Saturday afternoon when the foundations of the RL East were well and truly shaken to their core.

The rain disappeared and the sun shone on MK4 as the players from both teams prepared to do battle that would cement the Roosters place as leaders in the competition. In very untypical fashion the Wolves started the game in a very strong manner. In particular Ed Kilby was prominent with both his strong running and defence in this period. MK conceded a scrum with a knock on but were matched in the mistakes department when the Roosters were guilty of a high tackle.

On the 5 minute mark after an inspired substitution, debutant Richard Hill crashed over the line leaving the Roosters defenders in his wake to make the score 4 - 0 with the conversion missed. Mistakes were traded by both sides and the Roosters began to show why they were top of the league and still are. They put a player into the ga and he charged to the try line and it was only the stern defence of the full back who made the try saving tackle.

Manning made a very strong run showing why he would be an asset to the Thames Valley Constabulary for crowd control at the MK Bowl. The Roosters exploited a gap in the MK defence scoring a converted try and from this point onwards turned the screw on the Wolves. Two errors by the Wolves were capitalised upon by the Roosters with a converted try to make the score 4 - 12.

The cardinal sin of not making touch from a penalty for the Roosters being offside was again punished with a try to make the score 4 - 16 with the Roosters showing their RL experience.

The Wolves at this point could have retreated to their den but following a rare Roosters error, knocking on from the kick off, the Wolves exerted their own band of pressure on the Cambridgeshire team, kicked through and scored a try in the corner.

Straight from the kick off by St Ives, Pearson gathered the ball and ran through the broken defensive line, fed Fountain who finished the move with a try. The Wolves were not done with their first half efforts with 2 further tries before the break. First up J - Lo scored and was followed up by AP who again showed his RL skills with J - Lo converting the try to make the half time score 22 - 16 to the team from the City of Cows.

The half time team talk focussed on maintaining the momentum for the Wolves, ball retention and not getting sucked into a niggly affair.

The RL nous of the Roosters shoed up straight away in the 2nd stanza as they yet again punished an MK mistake with a try to make the score 22 - 20. J - Lo's kicking skills were being put on display for all to see with a kick off that bounced and then found touch giving the ball back to the Wolves. Sadly the Wolves could not carry on their sterling work as they conceded their second try of the half to the Roosters to give them a 22 - 24 lead.

Little did the onlooking crowd know that this was to be the last score for the men from Cambridgeshire.

Sadly the next passage of play saw a Rooster being led from the field with a suspected broken leg in what was his first game for the team. Luckily the Wolves have a first class physio in the shape of Ms Laura Bowley who assisted the player whilst they waited for the ambulance who had to fight their way through the traffic generated by the SHM event. The game itself entered a niggly period with little rubgy being played and a few incidents that caused the game to be stopped for a cooling off period by both sides.

3 tries were scored by the Wolves in the last 15 minutes of the game with the highlight being a try from KMC. He broke the Roosters line with a typical hand off and ran half the length of the field with his hand ready to fend off any would be chaser. No one caught up with Kieran as he put the icing on the cake as far as MK were concerned.

Final score MK Wolves 38 St Ives 24

Next week the Wolves travel to Kings Lynn for a must win game that could propel the Wolves to the end of season play off's

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