Lymm Eagles 52 – 0 Glossop 2nds

Eagles Do the Derbyshire Double

After a season with relatively few ups and possibly too many downs, Lymm Eagles arrived at Crouchley Lane on Saturday full of hope and positivity for their last home game of the season against Glossop 2XV. Their last encounter had been the first game of this season back in September and had resulted in a convincing 3 – 63 away win for the Eagles. The Derbyshire visitors were obviously keen to redress the balance as they were on the pitch going through well-rehearsed drills and moves before any of the Eagles squad had sorted their own kit out in the changing room. Some of the lads were also a bit disappointed, when they found out that the large number of cars and spectators milling around in the car park had , in fact, come to see the Lymm First Team play Barnstaple and not the Eagles play Glossop. Still we all live in hope!

Surprisingly, despite all three Lymm Teams having games this week, Captain Olly Brown seemed to have been able to wave his magic boots and assembled an excellent squad and a full complement of replacements. This included the father and son combos of Martin and Fin Henderson, and Rob and Charlie Worsfold (for his senior rugby debut), the returning Mike Clarke, Cronan Creagh and Rick McEvoy, the welcome support (non-surgical) from ex Senior Colts Sam Cooper and Archie Gibbons together with the kicking skills of young Oscar Newton.

The weather at the kick off was a bit grey and miserable, but it looked like the rain would hold off. The Eagles forwards immediately launched themselves into attack mode with the front row big guns of Capewell, Brown and Harrison leading the charge. Glossop were clearly surprised by the ferocity of the play during the initial few minutes but did well to repel the onslaught and prevent an early score in the corner. Only a minute or so later, a spilled ball in mid field was immediately seized upon by centre Tom Baker, who twisted, turned, ducked and dived his way for 15m through the Glossop line to crash over the line to score in a move reminiscent of a prime Ma’a Nonu (Tom Baker shouted that I write this in the report. However for balance, I thought it was more prime Andy Goode). Oscar Newton made short work of the conversion (7 – 0) after 5 minutes.

Play for the next 10 minutes or so hardly strayed outside of the Glossop 22m with repeated attacks from the Lymm forwards being halted just before the line on several occasions. Flanker Marc O’Connor was playing like a man possessed at the back of the rucks and mauls with drive after drive towards the try line. The continued pressure of the attack from Lymm seemed to cause a bit of upset in the Glossop ranks which caused a few handbags to be thrown. These were not received well by the Lymm forwards and resulted in a bit of unseemly pushing and shoving. After a few words to the captains from the ref, the game restarted. The Glossop backs worked well together to move the ball well into the Lymm half, but a dropped pass was quickly snaffled by the ever-alert McEvoy who managed to sprint a good 30m back into the Glossop half before he was hauled down. Fortunately, Craig “Viking” Capewell had been thundering up the pitch in close support and took the offload from Macca to finish the drive to the line and score close to the posts. Once again, the reliable boot of Newton added the extras. (14 – 0) after 25 minutes.

Although Lymm were clearly doing well in attack mode, they were also demonstrating excellent defensive skills, particularly with the tackling from Rob Worsfold, Sam Cooper and Tom Baker in the three-quarter line. This level of commitment and finishing in defence had been mysteriously missing from the last couple of Eagles games so it was reassuring to see it in evidence here. Once again, the Eagles seemed to be able to break out of situations even when under intense pressure. Young Charlie Worsfold was having a great game at scrum half set off on a lovely blind side run from the rear of a scrum deep in the Lymm half. He was shadowed closely on his inside by flying Rick McEvoy who moved to the outside to receive the offload pass as Charlie was tackled. He continued to sprint down the touchline for about 40m and was only denied a score by a last-ditch tackle only a couple of metres out from the Glossop line. Although the ball was grounded behind the try line, unfortunately the tackle had already pushed his boot into touch. This was immediately spotted by the eagle-eyed, sprightly, touch judge (me!), who being terminally honest, had no option than signal for a line out (accompanied by much booing and hissing from the Lymm players and spectators.) It’s always nice to feel valued and appreciated.

By now the Lymm forwards were clearly dominating the set pieces, rucks and mauls and were even making a good fist of the lineouts by winning a surprising number of them. This was principally due to the athletic jumping ability of No.8 Ben “The Salmon” Stroud and the strength of the forwards David Coon and George “Ringo” Harrison in getting him airborne. This allowed captain Olly to move some of the players around and make full use of his bench of replacements to rest some and give everyone the opportunity for a decent amount of game time.

Play remained firmly in the Glossop half and despite them struggling in the scrums, their defensive skills were never in doubt, and they continued to successfully keep Lymm out despite repeated attempts at scoring. Despite the very blustery conditions, Rob Worsfold and Rick McEvoy produced some excellent displays of kicking from hand which enabled the Eagles to gain a good deal of ground much to the dismay of Glossop who had to give up the hard-won territory. Eventually in another great display of strength and agility, Craig Capewell ripped the ball out of back of a maul and set off on a one-man demolition run to cover the remaining 15m to the line for his second try of the day. The angle narrowly defeated the kick from Newton but put the score at (19 – 0) after 36 minutes play. Both sides dug in for the last few minutes of the half with no further score.

Half Time: Lymm Eagles 19 – 0 Glossop

The half time briefing from Captain Brown was pretty clear. Keep doing what you are doing but do it harder and better. The referee said he did appreciate the imbalance in the scrum between the two packs particularly in the front rows and he stressed the importance of remaining square and not pushing early for which he had already penalised Lymm. The Lymm front row gave their usual grunts, unintelligible mutterings and puzzled looks and introduced powerful replacement Gareth Evans to add even more firepower.

The half time break gave captain Olly another opportunity to rearrange his troops and brought on veteran Martin “Henders” Henderson in his usual role of annoying scrum half. Stalwart utility forward Jez Ure and general nuisance Mike Clarke were also brought on to provide some forward momentum.

Unfortunately, within a couple of minutes of the restart, the heavens opened and what had been a light drizzle turned into a heavy downpour of freezing rain. This caught everyone by surprise and both teams were left scrabbling around on the ground to get hands on an increasingly slippery ball. Nevertheless after only 6 minutes play, Sam Cooper, probably gifted with better vision than the majority of the Eagles because of his youth, gathered the ball from a Glossop chip and stormed 25m up the pitch through the driving rain and the opposition for a great individual try. The conversion attempt from Newton was narrowly missed. (24 -0). Only a few minutes later, the seemingly unstoppable Craig Capewell somehow managed to rip the ball out from beneath a pile of assorted bodies and rampage the last few metres to the line carrying several Glossop players with him to get his hat trick of tries. The conversion was well made by Oscar Newton. (31 – 0) on 50 minutes.

The pressure from the Eagles forwards was relentless with all 8 forwards playing as a well-co-ordinated unit. It was difficult to keep track of the regular interchange of the forwards which kept up the Eagles momentum and kept players rested and fresh. The front row was having a field day in the scrum, with prop David Coon in particular, causing all sorts of issues for his opposite number. The engine room of Jez Ure, Cronan Creagh, George Harrison, Ben Stroud and Mike Clarke were all instrumental in driving forward to win scrums against the head and securing good ball for the backs. Flankers, Fin Henderson Fin and Marc “Seeya” O’Connor were scampering around the rucks and mauls with sniping runs in attack and supporting breaks from the back row.

Play settled down for the next 15 minutes with most of the action taking place between the 22s with only the occasional long-distance kick and chase to try and gain ground. Unfortunately, Glossop seemed to become increasingly frustrated at their inability to penetrate the Lymm defence. This was accompanied by a lot of “verbals” with accusation of foul play and miscellaneous skullduggery on both sides. The referee attempted to diffuse the situation with offers to deal with any further childish behaviour with 10 minutes on the naughty step. The resultant penalty kick from Glossop was prevented from reaching touch by a highly acrobatic touchline jump from full back Oscar Newton. The Eagles regathered the ball which made its way across the pitch through many safe passes to arrive in the hands of Mike Clarke. Mike, already travelling at speed, needed no further invitation to dive over near for a great try accurately converted by Oscar Newton. (38 – 0).

With the match now in the last quarter, Lymm seemed to be very much in control, but there was no denying the continuing defensive strength and resilience of the Glossop side. They continued to put the Lymm three-quarter line under as much pressure as possible and they definitely tried everything they could to keep the ball out of the reach of the Lymm forwards. Only a dubiously called forward pass from the referee (who despite being assessed, was doing his level best to even the game up) prevented George “Ringo” Harrison a thoroughly deserved try. This scribe personally blames the pass, but it doesn’t Macca….sorry matter who it was!! Lymm continued to press forward and once again, the forwards recovered a loose ball which was quickly shipped out through the backs to winger Ash Caffrey. Sprinting hard down the wing, Ash looked in danger of being bundled into touch so cleverly offloaded inside to full back Oscar Newton who sprinted the last few metres to score near the corner. His long-distance conversion from the touchline brought the score to (45 – 0) with only 8 minutes left on the clock (well my watch anyway).

From the restart, Glossop threw everything they could into their game to try to make sure that the result was not a whitewash. This led to some wild tackling and even wilder arm swinging as discipline in the game started to deteriorate. The situation for Glossop was not helped when the ever-enterprising Craig Capewell tore the ball free from the centre of a 16 man (rough estimate) maul about 60m (even rougher estimate) out from the Glossop line and proceeded to embark on a solo, unsupported expedition through the entire remainder of the Glossop team, shrugging off all attempts to bring him down. He crashed over the line to score close enough to the posts so that the conversion from the reliable boot of Oscar Newton was almost a formality. (52 – 0) on 76 minutes.

Unfortunately, this did not go down well with Glossop, and unfortunately the restart descended into a pushing and shoving match, with shirts being pulled over heads and in a couple of cases, ripped off altogether, which was not a pretty sight. It has to be said that the Eagles were not entirely blameless in this regard in reacting to a few time wasting efforts by Glossop, but perhaps being so far in the lead did not treat the whole thing too seriously. At this point, the referee decided enough playing time had elapsed and blew his whistle for full time which was definitely the right call.

Full Time: Lymm Eagles 52 – 0 Glossop

A big thanks to Glossop for a very competitive match (despite the scoreline) and for completing both fixtures with Lymm this season without recourse to postponement and rearrangement. It’s always difficult to persuade players to travel to long distance away games particularly in his league and we wish you well for the future.

A big thanks to everyone who played in today’s game, and it was reassuring to get back to winning ways again. The amount of effort and commitment put in by every player was self-evident and it was especially nice to see players smiling during the game and demonstrating that particular brand of Eagle’s Team Spirit which has been somewhat lacking in recent matches.

A big thanks as ever to Captain Olly Brown, and his on-pitch Deputy, David Coon for assembling such a talented bunch of individuals and their proactive management of the match. As far as I could see, everyone had a good game today and made a valuable contribution. All killers and no fillers as my grandchildren say! Particular thanks also to the younger members of the squad (Eaglets?) whose pace, strength and agility made such a difference. Great performances from Oscar Newton with a personal bag of 17 points including one try. However, for this scribe (and I have the only vote), the Man of the Match must go to our resident Viking and front row star, Craig Capewell with an outstanding personal performance and a bag of 4 tries. His physical presence on the pitch (not to mention his equally fearsome appearance) strikes a deep chill into his opponents and team mates alike. He always gives 100% effort which, amazingly he manages to maintain throughout the game. Well done Craig (you can get me a beer next week).

Next week the Eagles face Wilmslow away in our last game of the season. Our last game at home did not go well and so it will need everyone who can to be available to play and put in a shift like you did today. Please let Olly know your availability as soon as possible. As ever, all spectators and support will be very welcome.

Tries: Tom Baker (5), Craig Capewell (25), (36), (50), (74), Sam Cooper (46), Mike Clarke (66), Oscar Newton (72)

Conversions: Oscar Newton (5), (25), (50), (66), (72), (74)

Team: 1) Olly Brown 2) Craig Capewell 3) David Coon 4) George Harrison 5) Ben Stroud 6) Fin Henderson 7) Marc O’Connor 8) Cronan Creagh 9) Charlie Worsfold 10) Rob Worsfold 11) Sam Cooper 12) Rick McEvoy 13) Tom Baker 14) Ash Caffrey 15) Oscar Newton

Bench: 16) Martin Henderson 17) Archie Gibbons 18) Jez Ure 19) Gareth Evans 20) Mike Clarke

Report by: Pete & David Coon