Sat 4 Feb 2023
Anselmians v WPRFC
4th February 2023 – Tremendous second half performance against league leaders
Anselmians 52 - 12 WPRFC
This week Park travelled to top of the table Anselmians for the rearranged fixture which was postponed from December due to the weather. With a large contingent of the first team being unavailable a reshuffled Park side took to the field with a number of debuts.
With the game underway, Park were under pressure in the early exchanges and a penalty put Anselmians into the Park 22 and Park worked hard to turn over the ball and clear their lines but Anselmians continued their pressure and scored their first converted try off a clearance kick that was picked up by the Anselmians fullback who stepped through the Park defence and off loaded to score under the posts on 6 minutes (7-0). Park got into the game and put in some strong phases through the forwards and were awarded a penalty at the ruck to give us some field position and a lineout in the Anselmians 22. Park won the lineout and put in 8 phases of attack through strong forward carries and were awarded a penalty for a high tackle and Lee Allmark took the tap quickly and drove over the line to score our first try on 12 minutes which was unconverted (7-5).
The remainder of the first half was a tough 28 minutes with Anselmians scoring six unanswered tries with Park not being able to get any foothold in the game with errors allowing Anselmians to capitalise and score some easy points.
Half time score 45 - 5
The second half was a totally different game with Park starting off strongly with a great break by Dan Williams from just outside our 22 only to be isolated and a penalty for holding on. Anselmians got another penalty a few minutes later and kicked for the corner and won the line out and launched an attack in the 22 only to be faced with strong defence and penalised at the ruck for going off their feet 5 metres out from the Park try line. Jack England took the penalty quickly and was brought down inside our 22 but a quick ball from Ross Morrin unleashed Justin Oles who ran straight through the Anselmians defence beating four defenders to score a magnificent 80 metre solo try which was converted by Chris Twigg (45-12) on 47 minutes.
This was now a game of attrition and Park dug deep and produced a fantastic second half performance to nullify the Anselmians attack and every player worked hard in attack and defence to turn the game around. The Park error count reduced as the players built great phases of play with all players putting in a really strong performance. Anselmians suffered from their indiscipline on 56 minutes with a deliberate knock on and spent the next 10 minutes down to 14 players. On 75 minutes Park forced a knock on with a strong tackle in the Park half and Chris Twigg picked up the ball and launched an attack cutting across the field and linking with Ross Morrin who powered forward and linked with Justin Oles who both made good ground before passing Liam Geary who lit the after burners and powered down the wing only to be tackled into touch in the Anselmians 22. This was end to end rugby with Park certainly edging this half but could not quite get over the whitewash. Unfortunately indiscipline from Park saw Jack England shown the yellow card and Anselmians took advantage by kicking for the corner and won the lineout and scored their final try from short range by their centre crashing over to end the game (52-12).
It was a great team effort in the second half with all players putting a huge shift to finish the half (7-7) and it would very unfair to pick out individuals as the performance by all players was outstanding including all the players who stepped up to first team but the scoreboard in the first half was just too big a deficit on the day.
Final score Anselmians 52 – 12 WPRFC
Team: Chris Twigg, Joe Lowe, Jack Johnson, Will Morrillo, Liam Geary, Lee Allmark, Charlie Smith, Dan Williams (Captain), Jack England, Evan Boucher, Jake Cornwell, Ben Cann, Bruce McGrogan, Justin Oles, Ross Morrin, Gregor Purves, Aiden Flanagan and Nathaniel Bradbury
