Sat 25 Jan 2025
WPRFC v Douglas
25th January 2025 – Park suffer defeat at home to Douglas
WPRFC 10 – 40 Douglas
This week Park welcomed Douglas to Stade de Burrows Hill for the rearranged fixture following the cancellation in December due to storm Darragh. This was going to a tough encounter against a well drilled Douglas side who currently sit one place above us in the league.
Douglas started the game, and Park secured the ball and played a few phases before Cameron Flangan kicked down field for territory, but Douglas fielded the ball and immediately showed their intention and ran the ball out of their half. Park regained possession and attacked Douglas but could not get on the score board and an error gave Douglas the opportunity to clear their lines. On 9 minutes Douglas had possession and played a few phases to get them into the Park half and the number eight broke the Park defensive line and off loaded to their winger who stepped through and scored the first try of the game to take the lead (0-7). A few minutes later Park stole a Douglas lineout ball on the half way line and attacked Douglas and got their reward with a Douglas player not rolling away and Cameron Flanagan stepped up and kicked the penalty to get their first points of the day (3-7). This was a real arm wrestle of a game for the next 10 minutes with both sides working hard in defence and attack but Park had their opportunities but could not get over the try line but on 21 minutes after a scrum just inside the Douglas 22, Park put together 13 phases of attack until a quick ball from scrum half Jack Williams to fly half Cameron Flanagan who ran a great line to score our first try with Cameron Flanagan also adding the conversion to take the lead (10-7). These turned out to be the last points of the first half with the remainder of the first half being a cagey encounter with both sides having good possession but both sides putting a huge defensive effort to stunt any further points.
Half time score 10 - 7
With the second half underway a mistake from the Park restart but them under pressure and a further knock on in our own 22 gave Douglas a scrum 10 metres out and Douglas drove Park over the line and were awarded a penalty try (10-14). This was a setback but Park regrouped and set about putting some useful phases of play together to get close to the Douglas 22 but the ball was lost forward and the Douglas winger picked up the loose ball a ran 60 metres to score another try to extend their lead (10-21) with only 44 minutes on the clock. Park tried to gain a foothold in the game but simple errors at the breakdown were stunting any attack and on 57 minutes a penalty awarded to Douglas from a scrum gave Douglas an easy chance for three points, but it was missed from close range. Douglas put the pressure on Park and controlled the game for long periods and on 65 minutes they scored their bonus point try with some positive running and a chip over which was collected and offloaded to score in the corner (10-26). 2 minutes later from the restart, Douglas field the ball and took two phases into contact and then went wide quickly and created a 2 on 1 which released their centre to run in a try from the half way line to extend their lead further (10-33). Douglas had not finished yet and scored their final try at the end of the match to seal a comfortable win in the second half (10-40).
This was a definitely a game of two halves from a Park perspective and credit to Douglas for their second half performance to win the game.
Final score WPRFC 10 – 40 Douglas
Team: Roan Cornwell, Richard Hart, Genesis Luli, Will Du Randt, Sanale Metwete, Cameron Flanagan, Jack Williams, Dan Williams, Matthew Treacy, Phil Lynch, Gary Dykes, Anthony Hopley, Joel Gaidan, Ross Morrin, Elijah Sau, Hanre Coetzee, Alex Burrage and Tom Dodson
