Hoylake 1st XV v's West Park

Not exactly a thriller at Melrose - By Matthew O'Neill

Hoylake 8
West Park 6

For the second game in a row between these two teams the final minute of the game decided the winner, fortunately for Hoylake, it was they who came out as winners in a tightly fought, ‘middle of the park’ game.

Hoylake arrived in confident mood. Once again with a reshuffled squad but they were still able to field a good experienced team, especially in the pack. Despite a professional start by the home team, Hoylake struggled to impose their size and experience as they lacked intensity and purpose. After giving away a number of penalties in our own half the West Park prop slotted one through after 20 minutes to give the visitors the lead. This gave Hoylake a little jolt and after some good pressure by the pack down the right flank, centre Rich Young then joined in with a strong ‘pick and go’ and provided quick ball to the scrum half to feed No8 Rob Kurton who proved elusive to the 4 defenders and stretched out his frame to touch down. Although the relatively easy conversion was missed, Hoylake were not to realise then how costly that miss could have been.

Half time ended at an uninspiring 5 – 3.

A bemused Coach G gave the pep talk at half time trying to gee his players up and bring back the intensity, which has been one of the reasons for Hoylake’s good start to the season. Things seemed to be going well with the men in red having a large amount of possession, but again they struggled in the final third to convert their dominance into points.

Then seemingly trying to make it harder for themselves Hoylake were reduced to 14 men when Phil James was yellow carded for retaliation which buoyed the opposition. With the game remaining very close on the score board, both teams tried to play with more urgency and it was West Park who got on the score sheet with another penalty making it 5 - 6.

Mistakes continued though, making it difficult for both teams to get in to any kind of flow. Hoylake were now back to full strength defending on their own 22 when winger Matt O’Hanlon was harshly sin-binned for not releasing the ball in a bid to turn the ball over. With time running out, Hoylake camped out in their opponents half and tried hard to get the game winning score but to no avail. Now in the last few minutes of play fly half James McLaughlin attempted two drop goals both of which being agonisingly unsuccessful but following a 22 metre drop out Hoylake were awarded a penalty approximately 35-40 yards out. With no time on the clock Hoylake opted for the posts and James McLaughlin took over as place kicker and to the disbelief of a certain few the ball sailed through the sticks to hand Hoylake the win.

Not the performance that Hoylake were expecting but they came up against a good strong team that should find themselves in the top 5 this year. Some notable performances for Hoylake though especially in the back row with Guy Byatt impressing again, Man of the Match awards went to Rob Kurton who was everywhere and scored the crucial try and James McLaughlin with a standard combative performance capped by a stellar match winning penalty.

This Saturday, Hoylake travel to Wigan with a decent squad, knowing that they need to up their performance considerably, if they are to take the spoils in a fixture they have struggled to win in recent times.