Just Enough

The greater part of the game was played in the Broughton Park end of the pitch, especially in the last quarter when the Wolves successfully pinned them back to defend their slender lead. On a wet and slippery afternoon, they had adapted their tactics to suit the conditions by abandoning their preferred running game. It had been the right thing to do even though their kicking for position didn’t always have the desired outcome. In the conditions, the game was never going to be the spectacle of free flowing rugby enjoyed in recent weeks but on this occasion the narrow margins between winning and losing were on their side.

It was a wonderful debut for seventeen year old Danny Kennedy in the Wolves back row. Within, the first seconds of the game, the Wolves forced a lineout on the Broughton Park twenty two, the ball bobbled about before being grasped by Mike Clifford, who slipped it to the unmarked Kennedy at the base of the lineout. He was off like a rocket for the opening score, in what his proud father said was one minute twenty seconds. He might also have had a second late in the second half, when he slipped two tackles from just inside the visitor’s half and very nearly had the pace to outstrip everyone to the line.

Nevertheless, if Park’s normally prolific goal kicker, Ronan O’Brien, had been wearing his point scoring boots the outcome could easily have been in the visitors’ favour. Three missed shots at goal from medium range kickable positions tell their own story. At this level, where most of the sides are so evenly matched, misses such as these are frequently what end up dividing the sides. Despite being under pressure for much of the game, they succeeded in regularly disrupting the Wilmslow scrum and lineout in the later stages, in all probability denying the home side the comfort of a defining match winning score. Referee Mark Owen may have regularly taken a dim view of their transgressions in close play but there was no doubt that the Wolves lost several promising positions as the ball squirted about on the slippery turf.

Wolves coach Giles Heagerty said afterwards that the Gusto man of the match, Ryan Parkinson, had been immense throughout at No. 8 in tidying up and making something of the scrappy ball coming his way. He was also delighted with what he described as the Wolves best defensive performance of the season. Broughton Park had had their share of possession but they were kept under so much pressure, he said, that they found it increasingly hard to get out of their own half. The longer the game went on, the more they had to resort to hopeful snatched high kicks, which were just run back at them by Matthew King, Ben Day and Chris Lee. The final score line didn’t reflect, he believed, the dominance of the home side.

After Kennedy’s opening thrust, Park had a short period where they were able to put some pressure on the Wilmslow defence. O’Brien missed his first pot at goal from about thirty five yards after ten minutes but almost immediately afterwards, Park fly half, Matthew Casson, put in a well placed cross kick for his right winger, the speedster Adedayo Titiloye, to chase and to get the touchdown.

Bob MacCallum’s first penalty followed on the half hour and minutes later Park’s O’Brien found himself in a tight defensive position. His clearing kick was partially charged down by Wolves centre, Josh Longmore, on the Park twenty two. He turned and caught the falling before flicking a neat pass inside to MacCallum, who finding the way clear ran away for the Wolves second try. MacCallum has been a thorn in the Broughton Park foot for many seasons now and how they must loathe him for the pain he has caused them again and again.

There was still time in the first half for O’Brien to miss his second penalty shot but he was on the mark early in the second half. A Park forward was then up to prevent the Wolves gathering the ball in from the restart and as it bounced about eluding slipping attackers and defenders alike, it was hacked on to give Park a scrum on the Wilmslow line. They drove and as the scrum wheeled, their No. 8, Dave Hanby, kept control of the ball to score. In a flash, it was now fifteen points apiece but, against all the odds, that was the last we were to see of Park as a serious attacking force.

Giles Heagerty rang the changes. The old war horse in the boiler room of the scrum, Rob Cowley, was rested to allow the almost equally old campaigner, Danny Jones, to come on. Liam MacCrea replaced Jack Walmsley in the front row and Chris Lee came onto the right wing. Whatever their effect, the Wolves dominated for the next thirty minutes but a solitary penalty from MacCallum was all that they had to show for their efforts. Somehow though, they just couldn’t apply the ‘coup de grace’ to emphasise their superiority and Park knew they still had a chance. Nobody on or off the field could relax as everyone knew that it would only take a single error of judgement or concentration to allow Park to come away with the spoils. But the Wolves had done enough and they didn’t allow that to happen.