Official West Hartlepool RFC

13 men against 15 two devitions betwen a great win 17 : 13 to the lower side well done lads

Now let the excuses start (love spuds)

We hate west we hate west

Bring it on

Smuddger

how can this happen? i thought they were 2 full divisions above us, can it be that they are not as good as the smug big headed gits think they are?
cant wait for all the "we had injuries" excuses to come in, some of the fat headed idiots were saying the Stags would do us today. :oD:-))

totally deserved the win, west offered very little in attack and anth carr spent most of the game chatting with the ref. lets not forget the U16's won 37-17 too. so much for us playing in a mickey mouse league!!!

i really thought this might happen rovers needed this win more than west.

i missed the game today but am totally gutted at the result! i have to say well done to rovers though!
we need to ask ourselves some serious questions. from what i can gather rovers just wanted it more which i find hard to stomach!

we've had a lot more positives than negatives in 2008 though and i hope we can move on in 2009.

i also hear lager is up to £2.45 a pint, its cheaper in the whitey!!!!!

Did not see that happening but congratulations to Rovers

I don`t like to see west lose ( to any side ) , perhaps the manner in which they lost hurts more , Rovers probably edged it dispite the difference in leagues status , but a side that gives away so many penalties is always going to struggle even if they win , and the penalty count is shocking as of late , as an outsider looking in i should think dicipline needs to improve , lots of games are won with penalty kicks as we know only to well , and a side with a good kicker will punish teams ... still , i wish BOTH teams today a good second half to the season and lets see some good rugby played .

Look, there MUST have been something EXTRA in thr Greggs Pasties tioday!!! Just not on!!
The better team on the day won so fair play and good luck for the rest of the season :)
Must say he good looking barman in the back room did a cracking job today though!!!!!

every dog has it's day :-)

the derbies have hardly been classics in recent years and this was no different really, hardly an entertaining spectacle (regardless of the result). came down to penalties in kickable positions - both sides gave lots of pens away but west gave two many within kicking range.

this is hardly the time for west fans to start going doom and gloom though, we'll be back. we're well placed in the league and we've got a big cup game coming up - it's not become a bad season just because this one got away....

its nice to support the best team in the town

well done lads

I took the liberty after the game to chat to a few players and managed to get a word with both the ref and his assessor. All agree that the penalty agree was high and that a card should have been issued to West early in the first half.

Aaron Myers was by the far the best player on the field for West, it was just unfortunate that the rest of the team did not always respond to his actions.

With regards Rovers, Andrew Foreman could have sealed the game much earlier when he drew three men and should have passed wide to an marked man. Instead he drove into the three players and got held up.

From a neutral aspect, at times it looked like players were playing as individuals rather than as a team. It often looked like neither team had a game plan.

I know speaking to a few in the bar the question was prompted as to what is the point in having a captain if the coach who is on the field is not going to pay any attention to him. Certainly from the sideline it looked like the West captain was struggling to keep control with the number 8 constantly taking over.

On balance both teams looked like they swayed from what they would do in league rugby week in week out and resorted to something different. Not sure if this true, but my perception from the side line was that Rovers wanted the win more than West and as a result became frustrated which appeared to result in the ref penalising.

What was clear was that the gap between the two teams is not as big as assumed. Rovers looked like they were a couple people short of full strength and West probably 4 short of full strength so neither team can say they put out a weakened/understrength team.

El Pedro says that indiscipline was a factor and I know from reading reports on other games and the ones I have seen, West will need to sort this part of the game out - maybe going back to what i said earlier (allowing the captain to control the team and not the coach on the field - but that is probably a whole new debate).

Anyway both teams good luck for the rest of the season.

Really enjoyed the game - the Bovril and hotdogs were very reasonably priced - good atmosphere in the clubhouse despite the home loss - good to catch up with a few old friends - long live the boxing day derby!

(I also agree with the comment above - Aaron was outstanding but all too often was fishing alone)

Top stuff by the ‘whites’.

Best of luck for the rest of the season West.

its important to remember that this game is a one off game that is about a good social day and bragging rights in the town rugby scene! rovers now have those bragging rights for the next year and well done to them!
saying that i am disappointed that we appear not to have taken the game itself seriously enough and now have to take rovers bragging on the chin!
i also have to say that i disagree with rovers fielding a player that is from another club. that is not a dig at the player as he is a good lad and was asked to play but for me it should be west v rovers.

frst i would like to say wot a good post by rugbyobservor got eveything spot on .i would also like to echo his comments about how well Aaron played he was awsome and i also thought tinker played pretty well. but personally we should of beaten rovers very comfortably with the team they had out and we had out . it was one of the weakest rovers team to play in a boxing day team for a while apart from the 3 foreman brothers which one went off early the other was injured for most of the game. the rovers team was in my opinion a weak one and we should of dominated with the team we had out .but hats off to rovers they stuck at it and got there reward at the end. but somthing has to be done with our dicipline it was awfull and that was the only thing that was keeping them in the game. also i think the selection for the game was a bit odd. but never mind theres always next year and its always better to to win over the dark side.

surely this makes us even on the guest front now robok?

especially seeing as rovers also fielded a ringer in that mick kent game as well, it's just yours wasn't very good!

I agree that giving away penalties is a problem west have got at the moment but both teams were getting frustrated with the ref (phil halls sin bin was for saying something to him), and it was very difficult for both sides to avoid giving away penalties when every breakdown was refereed differently. I can think of a couple of occasions when west were penalised for holding on when the tackled player had barely even hit the ground, which were rapidly followed rovers being penalised when west were quite clearly holding on to the ball on the ground.

I've got no problem with refs giving a lot of early penalites and/or cards to establish what he wants at the breakdown, but there was no consistancy at all yesterday.