Moortown – Malton & Norton
29th October 2022
RF
Malt strike late to take the spoils
After last week’s close defeat over at Old Brodleians we visited Moortown with six changes. From the intense warm up you could tell “Town” looked full of confidence going into this game after winning all seven of their previous games. Making his first team debut for us was Eliott Briggs at hooker, Sean Emms & Tom Lowry returned into the pack. The conductor James Bulmer slotted back into Fly Half, the evergreen Stu Collins started at 12 on the Bench Ted Hughes warmed up but rolled his ankle so he’s in the physio’s room now, he was joined in the dugout by Matt Bowman and Ben Tenge.
Previous years we’ve played Moortown scores have been high but the first 10 minutes set the tone of this Match, a Greasy day and both teams fronting up in defence, Malt infringed first straight in front and their kicking hooker slotted a Penalty. 3 - 0
A determined restart saw us make some yards though “the pensioner” or so they called Stuy, a breakdown penalty for not rolling was sweetly struck by Paul 3-3.
The next ten minutes flew by with both teams making breaks but solid consistent refereeing by our man in the middle made sure it was a good contest at the breakdown. Trading a few not rolling away penalties “Town” had a line out twenty meters out with efforts from the tight five lead by Nick Salisbury and Will Dunn stopped the maul at source, only for the scrummy to quickly find the fullback then ultimately fed the rapid winger to race over in the corner, again the Hooker slotted the conversion 10 – 3.
From the restart a clearing kick didn’t make touch a lovely show and go by the covering Angus fed Fothergill into a hole only for “Town” to be caught off side. 10 – 6 Angus with the Penalty.
“Town” restarted deep, Bully asked for a kick chase which set up a turnover in their half, our pack who kept the pressure on rucking and rolling towards the line following seven or eight big collisions right on the line Rob Featherstone buried his head and we took the lead. 10 – 11 Conversion missed.
Final few minutes of the half space was aplenty plenty of meters were made but following a knock on, “Town” infringed at a scrum and Paul slotted the pen right on half time to lead 10 – 14.
“Town” returned from the shed’s looking like Mike Bassett had given their team talk really fired up but very much like the first half the first twenty both teams cancelled each other out.
Following a kick to the corner Moortown struck from the rear of a maul the hooker diving over and slotting the extras. 17 – 10 with around eighteen minutes left.
Make or break moments followed, the introduction of Matty B and Tengy added that hard running. The first up tackles from Rounthwaite and Triffitt stopped unwanted pressure but the clock was still ticking. More and more of the “town ultras” were finding their voice with a couple amusing quips amongst a host of other “playground style” verbal volleys’.
After a few handbags in front of the crowd, we set about getting this winning score with only minutes left we pushed a scrum back and the town number eight was caught holding on. A Quickly taken tap was fed to the speedsters on the top side Bell, Fothergill and Ed Lockwood who was magnificent throughout. Bully then demanded the ball and shifted it to Stephenson and Tengy on the other wing. After a few phases the call was sent to send it back, Bell right on the edge kicked it through before he went into touch, only to see the covering town winger to take it back over and dot it down. Scrum five, Malt put it and massive heave by our eight sent back the Moortown lads for skipper Triff to roll off the scrum and win it. Paul missed the conversion despite hitting it well.
FULL TIME 17 – 19
Next week we entertain Morley and the kick off moves to 14:15, we still sit in second place with Moortowns winning run ended and their lead cut to five points.
The Super two’s were victorious at Home to Hullensians 2 XV winning 32 – 14 Josh Raines and Tom Barker were mentioned as been on top form.
Pat Lane’s Trees pulled out of their away fixture at Hull Ionians 4ths we’re sorry to them, we’ll rearrange half term killed our player availability
The First Team Squad;
15 Al Fothergill
14 Will Bell
13 Ed Lockwood
12 Stu Collins
11 Jacob Stephenson
10 James Bulmer
9 Paul Angus (3 x Pens)
1 Nick Salisbury
2 Eliott Briggs (debut)
3 Rob Featherstone (1 Try)
4 Will Dunn
5 Sean Emms
6 Jamie Rounthwaite
7 Tom Lowry
8 Sam Triffitt (1 Ty)
Subs
16 Ted Hughes (not used)
17 Matt Bowman (used)
18 Ben Tenge (used
