Official West Hartlepool RFC

Thanks El Pedro. Bucks won their cup tie against Sedgefield II's 48-12 (or close)

That was a game of two halves for West, the second a great deal better than the first.
Before half-time we looked disorganised, gave the ball away cheaply and put ourselves under extra pressure with some awful passing.
Thank goodness it got better in the second. But let's not allow the result to fool us ... it looks like being a long, hard season.

The match report & Rozzy's comments are highly accurate and sum it up perfectly I think.

I thought it was a great game to watch and to win though. Two sides playing very physically and with just the right amount of feistiness without being ugly, just what you would expect from two teams with their backs to the wall.

Butch's try for me summed up exactly the way we should be playing at this time of the year. Retention of possession mixed with some very good tactical kicking to get into the right field possession then hit them hard with a strike move from s good set piece - great stuff; not many teams would have stopped that from being a try.

Not many hookers will hit the target 100pc of the time at this time of the year and so I think we can steal a lot of ball at the front of the line out or at least force a scrum by pressurising the thrower; there was quite a few wonky Clecky ones yesterday that went unpunished actually and so it's worth kicking us into position sometimes, even if it does mean giving the other side a line out, providing we contest it well.

The bench impact was impressive I thought. The Captain looked like he had never been away and J Fouldes tackled like a Mad Dog. Plus we even managed to still have one member of The Masterace kept back in reserve, although putting 3 Gingas on at the same time would have been a bit unfair to be honest 😁😁

Well done though lads - a win is a win - onward & upward now.

Poor game I thought. We can't afford to keep giving away possession and if the kicker is off form give someone else a turn. We make things far harder than they need to be. On the plus side the old spirit seemed to be back and no doubt Rover and Out was unhappy to see the win.

Thank you for your interest as you so often say to me.

Well, the result did nothing for me in the Prediction League if that’s what you mean.

It was a good job you did win otherwise you’d have slumped to the bottom.

Was a day for a few funny results.

Here’s one for you then, how many times does Painter have to be carded before the penny drops?