At half time we were just four points adrift and a shock was certainly possible, but for the second week in a row the opposition benefitted from two “gift” tries.
In the 54th minute the Sandal backs threw the ball out on the half way line, however one pass was at least a metres forward - but there was no whistle. Sandal gratefuly continued with hooker Jamie Heron finishing off the move.
Peter Stentiford was aware he may have missed something and called both skippers over before the restart. He explained that he’d been dodging an altercation between West's Ryan Painter and Sandal’s Rob Norbury and had not been in a position to see the passage of play.
Six minutes later our fate was sealed by a similar controversial incident.
West attacked 15 metres into the Sandal half with Stu Waites evading two tackles and seeking to find Adam Coates on his left.
The West players maintained that Coates was tackled before the ball reached him. However, the upshot was that Sandal grabbed possession and speedy centre Simon Frewin raced in from 50 metres.
Wet had begun the game in fine style only to go behind on the quarter hour. A missed tackle on stand off Greg Wood allowed him to avoid the cover and set up a conversion for himself.
We came back and did finally manage our first tryin 2013. It came after 25 minutes when Waites held his pass long enough for a gap to open up, which he raced through to set Jonny Boatman up on an inside run.
He drew the cover and lobbed a pass over full back Tom Coad and into the hands of Colin Cheslin who gratefully dived over.
Waites added the points to level the scores and added a penalty on the half time whistle, but by then Sandal had restored their lead through winger Alex Orr.
We again had plenty of ball in the second half, but were up against a defence drilled by former rugby league players and rarely threatened.
By contrast Sandal’s pacy backs always looked menacing. With the last move of the game they rounded the score off when Frewin showed a burst of real speed to race round the cover. He went in at the left corner with Wood adding a fine touchline conversion.
West: Colin Cheslin, Peter Youll, Andrew Foreman, Greg Edwards, Scott Butcher, Stu Waites, Ryan Painter, Ian Pinchen, Andrew Dixon, Ross Wood, Nathan Myers, Michael Hogan, Sam Miller, Dan Boatman [capt], Jon Boatman. Reps: Adam Coates, Andrew Cheslin, Jay Corbett.
Tries: Colin Cheslin
Con: St Waites
Pen: Stu Waites
Yellow: Dan Boatman [77 mins]
Sandal: Tom Coad, Alex Orr, Simon Frewin, Dave Martin, James Ellar, Greg Wood (capt), Max Whittingham, Luke Norbury, Jamie Heron, Rob Norbury, Austen Thompson, James Stewart, Sean Maguire, Jonny Gatus, Sam Whittingham. Reps: Ash Norbury, James Riley, Dan McCormack
Triues: Simon Frewin [2], Orr, Heron, Wood.
Cons: Wood: [4]
Referee: Peter Stentiford