West End 5 - 33 Medicals Serpents
Not the start to 2017 that West end were looking for with a 33-5 defeat but good effort and heart from the lads.
It started with the first 20 minutes being played equally with both teams taking turns to dominate and how well their backs and forwards can play.
Then Medicals came up with two tries which were not easy to score, with credit to the West End defence. Then West End ramped up the pressure by attacking well with more than just the backs controlling the ball. Unfortunately for the home side hooker Jacob Foys day was cut short with a head injury.
From here many tackles came out which put the new head contact sanctions to be used against West End. The second half came and West End were quicker out the blocks with the lineouts being controlled and scrums going well until Allmond was sent to the sin bin for 10 minutes after some handbags with the opposing scrumhalf.
With the man advantage Medicals soon got back on form, scoring again and again to get three tries on the board. West End did not bow down to the pressure like they did against Blyth and carried on with Mike Marra swimming through to score a try in the corner to get an account of there own. From there the away side tried their hardest to break the black defensive line but they had no luck with multiple phases ended with Ewan Pritchard coming off his wing to turn the ball over after playing most of the game in the rucks.
Medicals then went on to score another try to seal the match. Changes came for West End with Andreas Haageman, Scott Walker and Paul O'Neil coming on to replace Dean Henderson, Ewan Pritchard and Jamie Hutchinson. Unfortunately for West End Paul O'Neil's game ended too quickly picking up a knee injury in a maul which could have been avoided, the gazelle O'Neil went from running past the tigers to being caught by them. Hopefully he will be back playing soon.
Then a crack came up for West End in the middle of the pitch, it was quite a big crack but West End didn't really want to attack there. With Dean Henderson showing off his bum mid ruck he didn't really click on to why the opposition didn't ruck over.
Then the new head contact rules came to the forefront with West End finishing the game with 14 men, that's all that needs to be said at this point. This was when the game ended and the lads were hailed for their efforts throughout, especially Ewan Pritchard's defence with his mums hairdryer giving him that extra edge today.
