Malton and Norton RUFC

MALTON SEE PURPLE.

JAMES KNOCK

In temperatures more suited to the eleven man game which uses stumps in place of tall posts, Malton arrived at the picturesque Heath rugby ground in the Calder valley to a firm dry pitch which produced a true high bounce for the oval ball.

Heath kicked off and Malton’s first touch of the ball saw it go directly into touch. From the restart Malton looked to run and pass wide testing the mettle of the Heath backs and on 5 minutes earned a penalty which drifted wide. At the same time no9 Angus departed with a bloody nose to give Embleton 7 minutes off the bench.
Play went from end to end with Malton absorbing the pressure from Heaths heavyweight pack. On 25 minutes Malton broke into Heath’s half and with two men outside him Malton’s winger chose to cut inside instead of letting the ball do the work and the chance was lost.

Heath in this first half had 60% territorial advantage and on 37 minutes had a golden chance but the big second rower put the pass down.
Malton till now had used a mix of tactics with boot and hands, but the quality of the Heath back 3 and no 10 was amply demonstrated by their cover play.
Nil all at half time was a true reflection of the even qualities of both sides the only advantage was Heaths aforementioned territory percentage.

Richard Johns the unflappable stand in coach asked the boys not to panic at half time but to stick to his game plan confident it would yield results against a heavyweight Heath eight in the 21 degree heat.
On 45 minutes Heath opened the scoring with a penalty for not releasing
The next 15 minutes saw both sides committing basic errors; dropping ball, falling off tackles, and poor positional kicking.
However Malton opened their account on 55 minutes with a sweetly struck penalty from Poole.
On 60 minutes the purple patch commenced with cracking back row interplay putting skipper Triffitt in for a 7 pointer. Two minutes later another penalty and the scarce travelling support now started to believe.

On 64 minutes the purple almost went to the end of the colour  spectrum with the try of the game. Fothergill caught the ball inside his own half, advanced,checked,feinted right, nimbly for a large man moved to his left ( shades of a Welsh fly half) delivered the ball to Triffitt on to Bowman and several more pairs of hands for Angus to theatrically dive over the line for 7 points.
20-3 game over?  Not according to Heath who replied on 67 minutes with a 7 pointer courtesy of their clever nimble footed 14.
Twelve minutes to game manage a 10 point margin seemed an simple task but Heath had other ideas and on 77 minutes their benchman went over for 5 points only.
Two minutes later prop Featherstone who had been living dangerously with the referee was  awarded a high tackle yellow and truculently trudged off with the advice to hurry from his teammates ringing in his ears. Fortunately no further scrummaging was required and a somewhat relieved Malton took the 4 league points. Unusually the subs bench was unused apart from a brief blood replacement; Richard Johns an old school hard taskmaster!
Next week the Bees at home, let’s hope balm is not required.

Malton:  James Bulmer,  Ed Lockwood,  Matt Bowman,  Tom Foan,  Ali Fothergill,  Shane Poole,  Paul Angus,  Nick Salisbury,  Bailey Lamb,  Rob Featherstone,  Will Dunn,  Sean Emms,  Will Hughes,  Tom Lowry,  Sam Triffitt (c).

Subs:  Nick Embleton (used)
            Tom Barker,  Lewie Welch,  (not used).

Scorers:  Triffitt  1try
                 Angus  1try
                 Poole  2 pens,  2 cons.