Cleckheaton 31 West 0

By Dave Picken - November 3 2008
Cleckheaton 31 West 0
Tim Sawyer
Let us hope that this awful display was a one off. West coach Tim Sawyer - on the pitch himself for 70 minutes - could only describe it as "a bad day at the office" while fellow coach Kevan Oliphant struggled to think of a worse performance in the 20 plus years he's been involved at senior level.

By all accounts Cleckheaton had a similar day last time out at Stockport where the home side ran them ragged winning 39-0. Let's hope we bounce back in the same way against high flyers Sheffield Tigers next week.

Cleck's response to their big defeat was to knuckle down and use their big pack to decent effect. We still had more than our fair share of possession failing miserably to do anything with it.

The home side's first try came after two minutes, when we had possession in our own 22, but a grubber kick, intended to set the backs away, fell straight to winger Marlon Miller who fed impressive full back Ryan Duckett. He ghosted passed two weak tackles to set up a conversion for himself.

We struggled to get in the opposition half and fell further behind on 15 minutes with prop Andy Piper finishing off some pressure by crashing over for another converted try.

We missed a fairly easy penalty attempt and then failed to capitalise when scrum half Matt Piper was sin binned for the high tackle on Iain Dixon.

Cleck were gifted another easy three points when we were penalised in front of our own posts for crossing to make it 17-0 at half time.

We did exert some pressure at the start of the second half before handing grateful full back Duckett a second try. A strong break out of defence looked promising but a lofted pass, which should have lead to a score, was just too high. When it was fumbled Duckett picked up and streaked home from 50 metres.

West were down to 14 at this point - after a litany of errors led to a frustrated Iain Robinson taking exception to someone holding onto his shirt.

Cleck's final try came on 78 minutes when burly replacement Tom Denton broke through a couple of half-hearted tackles and plunged over.

Cleckheaton: Ryan Duckett, Craig Blackburn, Mathinus Venter, Waisail Sovatobua, Marlon Miller, Doug Trevella, Matt Piper, Rich Piper, Boshoff Muller, Andy Piper, Ian Gresser, Craig Rika, Lance Hamilton, Dave Malton, Ben Wade.

West: Iain Dixon, Colin Cheslin [R Thorn 60], Peter Hodgson,Jamie Connolly, Gareth Kerr, Paul Moss,Davy Tighe,Anth Carr,Tim Sawyer [Andrew Dixon 70],Adam Coates [Chris Stewart 55] Tom Dixon, Iain Robinson, Dan Boatman, Carl Miller,Paul Vinnicombe.