Wolves
Matches
Sat 06 Apr 2013  ·  North 1 West
Carlisle
40
25
Wilmslow RUFC
Wolves
Tries: T Raynor, Unknown, M CliffordConversions: B MacCallum (2)Penalties: B MacCallum (2)
Second Fiddle

Second Fiddle

David Pike9 Apr 2013 - 11:44
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The Wolves were going to have to be at their very best if they were to turn over Carlisle on their own cabbage patch.

. The Cumbrians were still in with an outside chance of making the play offs for National 3 rugby next season should either of the two front runners slip up and that would be motivation enough. In football parlance, that’s equivalent to advancing from the Blue Square Premier to the Football League.

As it was the Wolves had to travel without several of their first choice picks so the management took the opportunity to blood young aspirants in what they knew would be a serious test for them. In going down by four tries to three and four penalties to two, nobody could say that anyone let themselves down. Although after the opening minutes, they were always chasing the game, they managed to stay in touch and right up to the final play, they were still in with a chance of taking something away for their efforts. Nevertheless, Carlisle aren’t lying in third place by accident and on the day it was clear to see the difference between a top of the table and mid table side. Carlisle were well prepared and organised and just had the edge when it mattered in most aspects of the game. In the scrum, they disturbed the Wilmslow heel more than once, in the ruck their forwards were just a bit more vigorous in attacking and stealing the ball. Although man for man smaller than their Wilmslow counterparts in the pack, they only lost one lineout all afternoon. Their handling and kicking out of hand, whilst not perfect, was more reliable than their visitors’ as was their ability to not throw the ball away when in possession.

For all their undoubted promise, the Wolves have to advance to the Carlisle levels if they are to fulfil their potential. It will require hard work and practice both as a unit and individually to iron out costly errors and mistakes and to develop the skills and composure to consistently deliver when under pressure. In that respect rugby is no different from any other game. You have to put in the graft on the training pitch. It’s worth noting that this season the Wolves have a 100% winning record against the league’s bottom four sides, close to 50% against the next six, all mid table sides, but only six defeats to show for their efforts against the top three.

With something like spring approaching at last, the Wolves got off to a flyer of a start. A fine break through the middle by Sam Cutts really deserved more than the ensuing penalty kicked from under the posts by Bob MacCallum. Moments later, MacCallum prodded the Wolves into good attacking territory, the forwards drove well from the lineout and when quick ball was crisply passed down the line, Angus Crawford, making his debut on the right wing, took his chance well. At this stage he must have thought that first team rugby would be easy.

The home side though were decidedly unphased by this turn of events and an immediate response when the Wolves failed to deal with the restart gave Carlisle’s Glen Weightman his first successful kick of the afternoon. Five minutes later, an inaccurate Wolves clearance kick gave Weightman the chance to counter attack from half way and his pass put second row Ryan Feeney in for a try.

Centre Rick Hughes then made a fine run for the Wolves which yielded nothing but moments later when Carlisle lost the ball in the Wilmslow half, Sam Cutts made another incisive run before making a perfectly timed his inside pass to Tom Rayner for the Wolves second try. There was no disguising though that the home side was building a head of steam, No. 8 Josh Holmes was becoming increasingly prominent with his powerful runs, and when they turned over a ruck close to the Wolves line, they were able after a couple of phases to stretch the defence for right winger Matt Minett to score. Twenty minutes played and Carlisle were now leading 17-15.

For the next twenty minutes, the Wolves found it hard to get out of their own territory but paradoxically when they did it opened the way to Carlisle’s third try. A long booming kick by Weightman had the Wolves’ Crawford scrambling all over the place and Carlisle left winger Dan Holmes nipped in to take the ball and to run all the way to the line. Crawford could be excused if he now thought that first team rugby was possibly more difficult than he had initially thought. A further Weightman penalty had the home side 27-15 to the good at the break.

The Wolves had their chances in the first quarter of the second period. There was another decent run from Crawford but their undoing was their inability to deliver the final pass sufficiently accurately to finish anything off. MacCallum’s second penalty was poor reward for some enterprising play and this was soon cancelled out by Weightman landing his third and fourth kicks as the home forwards started to get the ascendency. A late try from Mike Clifford when the Wolves profited from a loose ball briefly raised hopes but with only ten minutes remaining time was running out and in the penultimate play of the game, Weightman put a penalty onto the Wolves line, they won the lineout, Holmes got away with what may have been a penalty offence and full back Damian Armstrong joined the line for the fourth try.

The final scoreline was probably a fair reflection of what had been an entertaining game. Wolves coach Rick Jones recognised his side’s shortcomings. We just weren’t precise enough, he said, we made too many errors when we had chances and when we lost a few scrums and rucks that we shouldn’t have done, it was hard to get the ball back off them. There’s still plenty to work on. It’s still work in progress to make that difficult step forward.

Match details

Match date

Sat 06 Apr 2013

Kickoff

15:00

Competition

North 1 West
Team overview
Further reading