Sat 10 Dec 2011
Firsts Lose Away At Alchester
Wallingford travelled to Marston Ferry Road to face Alchester on a fine but chilly Saturday afternoon. In selection, Jack replaced the injured Tom Rowberry, Phil Kelly came in for the also injured Fraser Hunt, whilst Matt Ebbs returned for the absent Rich Bower.
Wallingford started the game retaining possession for numerous phases, and made several half breaks, but Alchester covered well in defence. Ironically, the visitors first score came from an Alchester mistake, as their fly-half had his innocuous kick charged down / caught by Smith who then sprinted in untouched from half way for the opening score.
Unfortunately for Wallingford, the curse of the first score seemed to strike again, as they took their foot off the pedal somewhat, and Alchester began to work their way back into the game, aided by a flurry of penalties conceded by the visitors. After working their way up to the visitors try line, their Number 8 cut a good line and took the ball at terminal velocity from 3 yards out to crash over for an equalising try.
The next ten minutes saw Wallingford create several good chances, with good hands putting Brettel, Holton and Miguel in space on the left wing on separate occasions, but on each occasion the Alchester cover defence put in some excellent tackles to deny the visitors a second score. Despite their threat, the home side got the last score of the half, as their wing converted a penalty well from wide on the right.
Half time Alchester 10 Wallingford 7.
The second half started and soon descended into farce, as the referee’s influence on the game became the determining factor.
With Wallingford missing too many tackles, Alchester were now on the front foot, and Wallingford began to give away penalty after penalty, some deserved, some absurd. The home side soon scored their second try, as they burst through the centres and the ball was eventually shipped wide after some soft tackling and they touched down in the corner for an unconverted try.
Things soon got worse for Wallingford as first Matt Ebbs was sin-binned for being off-side at a line-out, and then, having used all our subs, Glenn Dearlove had to leave the field with cracked ribs after the Alchester Number 8 dropped his knee into Dearlove’s ribs as he was tackled. This cheap-shot seemed to finally ignite Wallingford, as they began to show the intensity they had been lacking for the first sixty minutes.
Wallingford launched wave upon wave of attack, with Alchester struggling to contain the Wallingford forwards around the fringe, but just as they looked to have built a platform for a score, things went wrong again. Having earned a penalty for the tackler making no attempt to roll away, over-zealous rucking from Monk had the penalty reversed and earned the prop ten minutes in the sin-bin. Alchester soon increased their lead with a converted penalty.
Fortunately for the visitors, the referee felt the need to even the sides up a little and he inexplicably sin-binned the Alchester centre for ‘using his elbow’ as he crashed the ball up. Wallingford continued to press, and had a stonewall try disallowed by the referee, much to everyone’s amazement. Alchester conceded several penalties yards short of their line, but their defence resisted the Wallingford runners. There was still time for two more farcical decisions from
the official. Firstly, Paul Lewis was given a straight red after he charged in expecting the ball from a penalty yards out, but after the ball was dummied he innocuously ran into his would-be tackler, with no damage caused, but the referee went straight for his card, much to the disbelief of both sets of supporters.
And then, after Miguel was tackled two yards short of the line, the referee decided the ball was grounded on the line and awarded the try, with disbelief again the general reaction of all involved. The conversion ended the game, with Alchester 18-17 victors. This was a bizarre game, in which, despite being under-cooked for three-quarters of the game, Wallingford still had plenty of opportunities to win it, but to be fair to Alchester, they defended excellently in the face on intense pressure.
We’ve all been guilty of being too critical of referees in the past, especially when your side loses, but the referee’s performance was bizarre throughout the game. Starting with him refusing to define when he deemed the ball to be out of the ruck in the pre-match talks, to the unfathomable red-card and the try that shouldn’t have been, both teams were bewildered by his display. Oh well.
1.Monk 2.Hill 3.Welch 4.Jack (Blaszko)5.Bailey 6.Norris 7.Ebbs (Lewis) 8.Jeffreys 9.Viljoen 10.Smith
11.Dearlove 12.Kelly 13.Holton 14.Miguel 15. Brettel (Best)
