West Park 19 West 8

By Dave Picken - January 26 2009
West Park 19 West 8
Carr Try
Yet another away defeat in the league. Second bottom West Park started as though they were expecting to be beaten but, after surviving the first twenty minutes, went on to impose themselves in a whistle strewn game and celebrate only their second league victory all season.
There was little sign of a home win in the first twenty minutes as we started where we left off at Burton last week.
Peter Hodgson made several breaks as the backs took the game to the opposition, but each time lack of support or basic handling errors meant the chance was lost.
The other West gradually came into the game with their pack asserting itself.
Then on the he half hour Iain Robinson limped off with a groin strain to be replaced by prop Adam Coates,
The pack saw Chris Stewart move from the front row to partner Tom Dixon in the second row.
We continued to attack with the Cheslin twins combining to race clear, but play was brought back for a forward pass.
Worse was to come when we were penalised close to the home line. Scrum half Ryan Delaharpe took a quick tap to set up a breakaway which saw winger Lee Rosney power over the line to give the home side a 5-0 lead.
The game was becomingly increasingly fractious and both prop Adam Glover and West Skipper Anth Carr were sin-binned on 37 minutes after yet another flare up.
We finally got our first score when Paul Moss converted a penalty from 35 metres, after missing one minutes earlier from similar range.
But it was the home side who had the final stay of the half with a penalty from George Tossel to make it 8-3 at the break.
The same player opened the second half with another penalty as the game degenerated into a lot of whistle and a lot of errors from both sides.
Moss went off to be replaced by Iain Dixon on the hour alstill couldn’t turn the pressure into points.
Instead, it was West Park who benefited with a second breakaway. This time it was centre turned prop Glover who showed impressive running skills to touchdown in the corner with West appealing for an earlier offence - Aaron Myers going to the sin-bin for the strength of his protest.
Tim Sawyer, one of the few West forwards making an impression round the pitch, limped of with a twisted knee on 63 minutes with Andrew Dixon coming on at hooker.
Then home scrum half Delaharpe sealed the game close to full time with a drop goal.
There was a consolation try in injury time when Anth Carr dropped on a loose ball after good work by Tom Dixon at a line-out five metres out.
It didn't do anything to ease the pain of another frustrating day away from home.