Rugby: Away defeat misery
GAINSBOROUGH Rugby Club produced a sound performance for the second consecutive week when they made the short trip to play merit table leaders Horncastle in the Lincolnshire Merit League.
Horncastle 22
Gainsborough 8
This game saw Craig Woodhead make his debut for the club and he signalled his intent by crashing over on the right wing to score Gainsborough's only try of the match.
For the first time two Man of the Match awards were made as coach Harry Sampson and Vernon Goude could not separate the level of performance of prop forward Dan Hikson and wing Kyle Dean.
Gainsborough took the game to Horncastle straight from the kick-off and pinned them back in their own half for 15 minutes.
The Gainsborough pack were so dominant that Horncastle changed their hooker after 12 minutes.
On 16 minutes the All Blacks conceded a penalty on the Horncastle 5m line and this took the pressure off the home defence. they cleared their lines and set about releasing their backs.
Scrum-half Tom Parkinson was injured in the 17th minute and Horncastle took advantage of this disruption and crossed the line to score the first points of the game.
This gave the home side the confidence they needed and on 22 minutes they scythed through the Gainsborough backs to touch down under the posts for a converted try to go 12-0 in front.
The All Blacks then applied pressure but could not turn all this into points.
The second half of the game started much the same as the first with Gainsborough dominating but there was always danger from the visitors when the home side backs had the ball.
Both Dan and Kyle made try-saving tackles to keep Gainsborough in the game but Horncastle broke through in the 60th minute to score under the posts, although the conversion was missed.
There were good breaks out of defence by Kyle Dean and Daniel Chadwick along with the powerful running of Elliot Humphrey, but the last pass was always short.
Horncastle then touched down again for an unconverted try to go 22-0 in front.
With time running out captain Andre Russell decided that the All Blacks deserved some points recognition for their efforts and called Tom Parkinson up to kick a penalty for goal rather than position on the park. Tom obliged and Gainsborough had their first three points on the board.
Gainsborough's forward dominance did bring them some reward when with only two minutes left on the clock the ball was released for the backs and as the ball came out new boy Woodhead crashed over the line after a very determined run.
Unfortunately, Tom Parkinson narrowly missed the conversion.
Although Gainsborough lost, it was an excellent game and as well as the joint Man of the Match award special mention must be made of the contribution of Daniel Chadwick and Elliot Humphrey.
This Saturday's game is at home to Grimsby with a 2.15pm kick-off.
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Weather for Gainsborough
Saturday 04 February 2012
Today
Light snow
Temperature: -4 C to 1 C
Wind Speed: 24 mph
Wind direction: South
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 1 C to 4 C
Wind Speed: 9 mph
Wind direction: West
