A Hard Afternoon

Away wins are always hard to come by and the task becomes even more difficult when you are forced into team changes, which you would probably have preferred not to have had to make. For this game, the Wolves had to draft in several players with limited experience at this level and others had to play out of position. Inevitably they found it hard to adapt to the demands of North 1 league rugby.

That is not to say that they didn’t commit themselves wholeheartedly to the cause. They tackled and they defended until they dropped. Some of the older hands, MacCallum, Day and Clifford were relentless, urging their team mates on. Toby Rowe, back from cricket, stood out with some exciting play from full back and the much improved Adam Hewitt put in a full stint at No. 6. But it wasn’t to be enough. Rugby is a hard hard game to play without sufficient possession of the ball and the Wolves set piece play, scrum and lineout creaked all afternoon.

On the other hand, there was an air of confidence in Carlisle. After a poor season last year, the talk is of a new look young side, with the potential to go places. They started with a good home win against Eccles and were unlucky to lose in the final moments at Birkenhead Park last week. Despite enforced changes in their line up, there was still plenty of belief as they set about outplaying Wilmslow in most facets of the game.

They dominated the opening minutes and it was no surprise when third choice fly half James Rocke landed a penalty after five minutes. The first scrum on the Wolves put in was shunted ten yards back. The squat little Tom Graham in the Carlisle front row could hardly keep up, it was going back so fast. Nor was the second scrum much better. Wolves full back Rowe rescued a situation on his line when it looked as though the home side must score and they did on the quarter hour when a long clearing kick be MacCallum was fielded on the touchline in his own half by Carlisle’s full back Matthew Minett. There wasn’t much wrong with MacCallum’s kick but nobody could do anything about Minett’s surging run down the middle without any hand being laid upon him. It looked as though he would score himself but unselfishly he passed to his centre Dan Holmes who raced over the line.

At this stage, the Wolves had barely been out of their own half and certainly hadn’t managed a concerted attack of their own. But they now had a bit of luck when a Carlisle forward dropped the restart. The scrum was messy but they managed to get the ball away along the line to Max Harvey on the right wing, who was held up just short. Back it came left to Hewitt, who confounded the home defence with something that looked like a dummy and went through the gap to score. The Carlisle players must have been wondering, when MacCallum’s kick went over, how they were only 8-7 ahead.

The Wolves forced another two or three promising positions in the second quarter but critical lineouts and scrums went awry and there was no further scoring up to half time.

Just as against Kendal the week before, the Wilmslow back three conspired to drop the ball early in the second half, enabling the home side to sustain pressure on the Wilmslow defence, which despite scrum and lineout chances just couldn’t clear the ball. Almost inevitably, Carlisle eventually strung a move together to put young left winger Yousef Sahib in for a score. This was followed by a kick to the corner by Minett, now playing at number 10. They took the lineout, crabbed across to under the posts and then when they recycled the ball right, Minett was in on the right. Down 18-7 away from home, nearly thirty minutes still to play, the omens for the Wolves weren’t good.
Nevertheless, they got into Carlisle territory and when a clearing kick was taken close to the touchline on halfway, MacCallum spotted space and then off loaded to Day, who put right winger Ian Culligan in for a try, a virtual carbon copy of Holmes’ s first half score for Carlisle

Briefly there was hope but the traffic was still mainly towards the Wilmslow line and when Rowe, quite correctly tried to thump the ball downfield into space for a chase, it was only taken comfortably by that man Minett, who off loaded to his big second row for a powerful gallop down the field and then took the return pass for the final score, which he converted himself. It was a good afternoon for him.

The Wilmslow coaches now have a job on their hands to prepare their side for the visit next weekend of Vale of Lune. The Wilmslow backs look capable enough when they get the ball, it’s how to secure enough of it for them quickly which is the problem that needs to be resolved.