West End 12 - 20 Morpeth Stags
A good show from today but a hard defeat to take from Morpeth.
It started with West End powering their way through Morpeth making big tackles and clearing rucks hard.
Morpeth quickly found gaps in the West End line and broke through on the wing and score the first try of the game. Despite the early deficit West End didn't let their heads drop and powered through Morpeth with the forwards dominating scrums well, possibly the best scrums of the season. Morpeth broke again using their favourite skill the catch and drive and the number 8 piled through to score the second of the game.
The forwards then once again listened to their coach and kept attacking with fast loose forward play going close to the line, breaking the Morpeth defence up. It all paid off with Mike Marra crawling through to score a great try in the corner to put points on the board for West.
The half was going well for West End still powering through the Morpeth pack, another chance to score came when Ewan Pritchard played a little bit of football kicking it past the winger then again over the centre. Unfortunately the play was pulled back from a mistake in the lineout earlier on, which meant the ball was given back to Morpeth and a certain try gone.
The second half came and West End made changes with Dean Henderson coming off and Wayne Lawson coming on. The home side showed that the kick from the Morpeth 10 wasn't going to faze them when Marty McHugh and Ewan Pritchard tied up the mountain winger to good effect.
Another Morpeth try came then with visitors taking the opportunities to attack from a well worked driving maul and executed the try. With plenty of substitutes available McGrann and Pritchard were taken off for Haageman and Venters to come on. Another try was scored in response for West End with prop forward Dean Henderson relishing his chance with ball in hand scoring a great try also converted by Marty Mchugh.
Harvey Thompson and Mark Douglass in the centres smashed through the Morpeth defence multiple times for the forwards to then start pushing through. Then a try came again with the right winger of Morpeth capitalising on some communication breakdown at the back to knock through and finish a try against the run of play.
A much changed forward pack for the home team were constantly pushing but tiredness kicked in when the lineouts became unorganised. The high tackle laws were once again applied however as one player put it, it is a lottery whether penalties are awarded.
The game ended and West End were defeated, a great improvement though from last time when they faced Morpeth as the visitors had to fight extremely hard to win. Great effort from everyone today showing determination throughout, we move on to an away trip to Medicals next week.
Tries: Marra, Henderson
Conversion: McHugh
Starting line up:
1 Hosking
2 Rowan
3 Henderson
4 Healy
5 Purvis
6 McGrann
7 Foy
8 Marra
9 Kay
10 Thornton
11 Pritchard
12 Thompson
13 Douglass
14 Haageman
15 McHugh
Subs: Venters, Lawson, Hutchinson, Shilling
