St Benedicts 21 West Park 0.

THE long journey, late cry-offs and the subsequent re-organisation did not help West Park’s cause however the team selected was well capable of returning from the Cumbrian coast with something, especially against a team struggling with its own injury and availability issues.

The reason they did not was the inability to manage the difficult conditions and the lack of precision and accuracy at key points in the game.

West Park started slowly and were quickly down six to nil as a result of two successful home penalties.

Although the home side dominated possession and field position the game was devoid of much action until the veteran home centre scored an unconverted try for the home side to lead 11 to nil.

West Park finally came to grips with the conditions and for the last ten minutes of the first half finally discovered some go forward and field position.

Deciding against taking two kickable penalties they opted for attacking line-outs both of which came to nothing and the visitors ended the first half empty handed.

Unfortunately West Park started the second half as the first in quite a lacklustre manner allowing the home side to take the initiative which they did with their third successful penalty, indeed the visitors were struggling in the face of an extremely uneven penalty count and a very heavy pitch which did not help Park’s normal free-running style of play.

One bright spot for Park was the impressive first team debut of young back row forward Jack Davies, another product of the club’s youth system, who before being replaced on the hour had made a number of telling tackles and worked tirelessly at the breakdown.

The one bit of quality in the game was the home sides second try which was finished by the impressive St Benedicts number 8 and with the conversion added this put the game beyond the reach of the visitors.

Following the pattern of the first half West Park dominated the final ten minutes of the game and despite a number of half breaks from Danny Green and forward drives led by second row Jones and props Kimberley and Riley Park remained unable to open their account.

Club chairman Mike Simpson joined the fray in the final few minutes taking up residence in the front row joining his son Kieran, who had been occupying the hooking position throughout the game.

This loss and other results means that next week’s home game against Leigh is of added significance as both teams strive to avoid relegation, kick off at Red Rocks 2.15pm