Adventure, Innovation and Misadventure

In his match notes column leading up to the game, club coach Giles Heagerty had expressed his admiration for the way the Australian coach, Robbie Deans, had had the courage to introduce a raft of hitherto unknown teenagers to international rugby and to encourage them to play their own inimitable style of rugby. Heagerty’s thoughts on how to play rugby mirror the Australian’s. Since taking up the coaching mantle at Wilmslow two seasons ago, he has been unafraid to give youth its chance, on this occasion giving a first appearance to the promising eighteen year old lock, Harrison Lewis. Heagerty has encouraged the players to go out and play the kind of exciting adventurous rugby that they want to play. When they have come unstuck, he believes, it’s because they’ve been prepared to give things a go, things which only impetuous and exuberant young players would try.

We saw all of that in this game but we also saw, like the Australians will have seen against England, that you have to have a front five to contest the close quarter stuff effectively and it was in this regard that the Wolves came uncomfortably close to being undone. It wasn’t anything like the same kind of battering that they had endured at Burnage a fortnight previously but their lack of desire to pragmatically work them selves out of defence cost them possession and territory. Time and again, their desire to play the exciting adventurous stuff from all parts of the field and their lack of patience would lead to error and hand back the initiative to their opponents. Our execution of the game plan let us down was how Heagerty succinctly described the performance afterwards.

The Kirkby Lonsdale side possessed none of the pace and invention of the Wolves but they did have a gritty pack of forwards, who were not about to be pushed about or aside in scrum and lineout. They lacked any kind of play maker, their tactics were one dimensional, pick and drive in close quarter play, but even if they were thumped backwards in the tackle, they knew how to hold on to the ball and to patiently build their position again. At the base of the scrum, scrum half Hadwin and No. 8 Shepherd were hounded throughout by Wolves scrum half Chris Lee, whose combative defence and tackling caught them in possession again and again. He justly earned the Gusto Man of the Match award. Kirkby’s forward progress was consequently slow but they enjoyed the lion’s share of possession throughout. It wasn’t that they won more first phase ball than the Wolves, they didn’t, but they kept hold of it far more effectively. To add to the Wolves frustration, referee Simon Mackeen saw fit to penalise them three times as often as their opponents for technical close quarter offences. One just couldn’t help feeling that Mr. Mackeen’s interpretation of the laws tend to favour the side in possession by being unduly hard on defenders competing for the ball at the breakdown. Nevertheless, the referee is the sole judge of fact and it’s up to the players to come to terms with that.

The Wolves scored after just two minutes of play, when they won a scrum on the Kirkby twenty two and moved the ball quickly right. Elliot Brierley made the half break before offloading to full back Matthew King, coming into the line like a rocket. There was no stopping him.

The pattern of the game now began to establish itself as the Kirkby forwards drove and rucked themselves into the Wilmslow half, whilst break outs by the Wilmslow backs and on one occasion, Tom Noot, always threatened and could easily have led to two or three tries. Kirkby scrum half Hadwin though was on target with a close range penalty on twenty minutes to reduce the deficit and it wasn’t until another breakout on the half hour that Elliot Brierley scooped up a loose pass to cross for the Wolves second try. The second half started with the Wolves trying to put pace on the ball from their own half of the field but succeeding only in coughing it up in the tackle. It then took them ten minutes to get into their opponents half of the field and to open up the opportunity that their elusive try scoring machine on the left wing, Chris Lillie, had been waiting for.

At 21-3, that should really have been game, set and match for the Wolves but it wasn’t. Far from it. The nuggety Kirkby pack just got on with what they were good at, denying the Wolves ball and territory, without threatening much themselves. Referee Mackeen got on with penalising the Wolves on the ground, Wolves flanker Tom Noot got yellow carded and a penalty try for the visitors followed. Back they came from the restart, Giles Heagerty rang the changes, Josh Longmore came on for Bob MacCallum at No. 10, Taff Bartlam for Lewis MacKay in the front row and the veteran Rob Cowley for the debutant lock Harrison Lewis but Kirkby were in the box seat now, their confidence growing by the second and another forward drive was finished off by their substitute stand off, Danny Wallace, on around sixty minutes.

Just four points separated the sides, the Kirkby supporters found their voices to cheer on their side whilst silent anxiety was clearly heard and seen on the faces of the home support. Fortunately for the Wolves another bit of magic in the shape of Jordan Kennedy relieved the pressure as he found a way to the line with fifteen minutes still to go. Hadwin once again reduced the margin to a single score with his second penalty for the visitors but in the last minutes the initiative had once again passed to the Wolves, who finished with a flourish, earning a close range penalty, which was slotted by Longmore to put them out of site. It had taken them until four minutes from no side to reach that stage.

Elsewhere, the Vikings and Hawks both had comprehensive wins away at Leigh and Old Bedians respectively and on Sunday afternoon, the colts despatched Macclesfield by 15 – 0. The only blot in the duty officer’s record book was the end of Andy Duggan’s winning run with his Ravens, who were sent packing by the Village Spartans.

Next weekend, it will be the turn of the Wolves to visit Leigh. They will be delighted if they can inflict the same kind of damage on their Leigh opponents as their Viking understudies.