Powerful Park

The Wolves will play an awful lot worse than they did against Birkenhead Park and still come away with a win but against the league leaders they had no answer to their well organised and efficient play. It was a sharp reminder of how far the Wolves still have to go if they want to become a genuine top four side in this league. Four of their five losses have been against top four sides.

Birkenhead Park are not an exciting side to watch but they have mastered their drills, make few unforced errors and play with discipline, confidence and patience, because they know that scoring opportunities will eventually come along.

Their dominance starts in the set piece at scrum time. It wasn’t as though the Wolves were humiliated at the scrum but the edge was always with the Park pack. Wolves hooker, Johnny Newsham, may have nicked one against the head and No. 8 Alex Taylor put in a herculean stint at the base of a retreating scrum in tidying up scrappy slow ball but you need quicker tidier possession off the front foot to mount your attacks. In the lineout too, the Wolves main jumper, Adam Hewitt, knew exactly where the ball would be going but such was the accuracy of the Park throwing and the timing of their jump that Hewitt was never able to get anywhere near it. Park’s clean lineout ball was augmented by their pack gathering round and frequently eating up the yards as they drove forward. It was disciplined and efficient and only a mighty defensive effort prevented Park from getting more than they did from their lineout dominance. Nevertheless, Sam Chidley at No. 9 is a decent operator and when the ball was released to him, he clearly had an eye for a gap and the rest of the Park backs only give up the ball reluctantly. It was noticeable that several of them were always able to make two or three yards in the tackle by twisting and making a complete turn as they came into contact before forcing a second tackler to take them to ground.

To their credit though, the Wolves took them on, made few defensive errors and critically didn’t give Park’s prolific kicker, Dave Hall, too many shots at goal. They also had their own moments when they tried to play their own more expansive game, stretching Park’s defence on occasions but still not able to breach it. Once again some over hasty play and taking the eye off the ball at critical moments caused promising looking attacks to break down.

Both sides had early chances but the first score came after twenty minutes when Park won a lineout in catch and drive territory. Initially it was held by the Wolves but a Park forward broke away and No. 8 David Ibbotson touched down.

The game was then disrupted by a bad knee injury, entirely accidental, to Wolves lock Simon Irving. The paramedics and ambulance service arrived promptly but it still took fifty minutes to get Irving off to hospital. Everyone knew it was a bad injury and we can only hope that he will recover in due course.

When the game was restarted, Park were contentiously awarded a scrum and after numerous phases, their second row Jack Ashcroft found himself the extra man for the second try. And then just before half time, Hall added to his two conversions when he landed a penalty chance.

There was some bright play by the Wolves at the start of the second period without reward, a Park catch and drive effort was held up and then midway through the half, the Wolves capitalised on a rare knock on by Park. Referee Snoddy played advantage and the ball quickly found its way to Sam Cutts on the left wing, who outstripped the defence to score. MacCallum converted from the touch line and for the briefest of moments, Wilmslow supporters dared to believe. Unfortunately the restart was dropped and from the ensuing scrum, Chidley was on his way, the ball was quickly recycled and moved right where second row Les Thomas took the scoring pass.

The Wolves maybe had the better of the final moments, there was a searing break by MacCallum who ran out of support just short of the line and the Wolves were unfortunate to be held responsible more than once for holding on when it looked as though the Park defenders were equally at fault. The light though was fast disappearing and if referee Snoddy blew for full side a handful of minutes early, then he could hardly have been blamed for that. Park had always been favourites and nobody could complain that they weren’t the better side but it was a measure of the Wolves effort that Park were denied a fourth try and bonus point.