A game too far

This game can be pretty much summed up by an old saying, ”there’s no substitute for pace”, and West Park Leeds, winners of Championship One North, had it in spades.

Having won the League for the 5th time in the last 6 seasons, this game, which is normally the play off for promotion, meant very little to the T-Birds with the Premiership closed off.
Forced to play on a Saturday, there were a few regular faces missing and the game was staged on an artificial pitch, which is never the T-Birds first choice. This really was a game too far.

The writing was on the wall when Park’s winger skinned everyone on the outside to post the first score in only 2 minutes, T’s pack rolled their sleeves up and got stuck in, but their physical domination in set piece and open play was not enough.
Kara Hepper, got one back on the 10 minute mark, but it was not enough, such was their pace that Parks wing and full back could almost score at will whenever they had the ball.

It’s very rare to score 4 tries and lose, but 4 tries to 2 in the first half saw T’s 28-12 down at half time and 3 tries to 2 in the second saw West Park run out 45-22 winners of the North South Cup.
Despite the physical domination, Ts lacked a clinical cutting edge and a huge defensive effort from Park saw Ts held up over the line on at least 4 occasions, if one or two of those had been grounded the complexion of the game might have been different.

Team :-Hepper, Duffy (T), Pugh, French, Nichols, Dixon, Edwards, Baker, Cook (T), Rettie, Macdonald, Harvey, Stopps, Smith, Parsad. Replacements :-Picton, Burrel (t), Shaw, Franklin, Whymark, Zitcova

The season is over for the T-Birds, but Thurrock will be hosting a Women’s Development Tournament in the afternoon on Sunday 22nd April. Any aspiring player is welcome to just turn up.