Wetherby finish the year with a win

So overall I think it’s fair to say that 2017 has been one of the more forgettable years for Wetherby’s first team, especially with the recent hoodoo of losing tight games in the closing stages hanging over their heads. Saturday’s visitors for the last game of 2017 were Roundhegians, a team that have squeezed three one score victories over Wetherby in the last couple of seasons, so the game was all set to be an evenly matched affair.

Wetherby applied much of the early pressure on Roundhegians, and started imposing the thoroughly dull style of rugby the red and white faithful have come to love. Despite Roundhegians holding on to the ball for the first five minutes, and not allowing us to force our beloved scrums, scrum time was always going to come. The tone was set for the afternoon’s proceedings by Scotty Wallis, who turned up looking like a background character from a where’s wally book. The leaner looking goliath burrowed into the hegians scrum and forced the first penalty.

With better field position, Wetherby were given the chance to strike one of their scintillating back moves, but instead decided to keep them firmly in the locker and stick to the ten man rugby. Despite the ball becoming scarily close to getting into the hands of the centres, Harry Kaye thought better of it and sold his show and go before waddling over the line like someone had tied a rope around his knees. 7-0.

Wetherby continued to show dominance in the first half, as they broke the line at regular intervals through some powerful carrying led by Steve Hoather and captain Danny Warden, who followed some fine surges in the game with some surging dance moves on Saturday night. He was last seen scraping ice off some poor lady’s car shortly after midnight with his hand scraping at the speed of a woodpeckers nose, hoping that nobody turned their lights on so she could see him.

The big forward carries were only halted by a sniping Roundhegians back row, who were generally over the ball quicker than the home team, but the pressure would eventually tell. Another break from Hoather was fed to Rhys Thomson, who stretched his long legs into the Roundhegians 22. A scrappy breakdown gave Wetherby another scrum, and another big heave propelled them towards the line as James Gibson put himself in mortal danger as he swam through a sea of flailing legs towards the line to dot down and score Wetherby’s second try. 14-0.

So, two tries up in the first half, without really breaking out of third gear with a set piece well on top. A familiar story, but with Wetherby all bets are off. After a poor exit strategy, Wetherby found themselves on the back foot, and Roundhegians played with good pace. Despite not missing a tackle in defence, the support lines from Hegians were superb and they eventually ran out of defenders to beat as they closed the gap to just one score. 14-7.

With ten minutes left in the half, Wetherby were hoping to convert more pressure into points. Roundhegians were forced down to 14 men as their scrum half was sin binned for his incessant moaning. Wetherby had two shots at goal, but the search is still on in the area for someone who can actually kick a rugby ball, a trait that got laughably worse as the game went on. Despite this Wetherby still went in ahead at the break.

Half-Time: Wetherby 14-7 Roundhegians

The second half started as the first had ended, with Wetherby firing in their big ball carriers into contact. Mattie Chappell and Tom Bottomley came off the bench in a race to get sin binned first. Both brought a big presence around the centre of the ruck in defence, but Wetherby again fell foul of turnover ball. Roundhegians found the ball hard to come by, but broke well, and again ran in good support lines as they converted a second try and drew level in the game. As frustrating as this was even Jack Kaye, whose head was wobbling around like he was in a mosh pit, couldn’t find where the faults actually were for Wetherby. 14-14.

Rhys Thomson was outstanding in both attack and defence, and whilst turning a ball over in defence took a nasty looking impact to the neck. Despite the major inconvenience this caused all of the players, he refused to move off the pitch, which just seemed a bit lazy to me. He was so lazy he even got a taxi to pick him up from the pitch. Fortunately Rhys turned out to be ok, and we moved over to the third choice pitch, which had more undulations than the bedsheets at Myles Oates’ bedsheets when he stays at ‘his friend’s house in Leeds’.

Over the hills and far away, Roundhegians had come to play. Despite Bryn Kitching wandering round on a path of destruction in defence, like the giant gingerbread man in Shrek 2, his second row partner Tom Bottomley successfully won his race to get sin binned quickly as he infringed at the maul. With the resulting penalty Hegians took the lead, and with 20 minutes to play had a stranglehold on the game. 14-17.

Wetherby were keen to hit back, and were marshalled well by scrum-half Dan Porritt. He passed like a wind-up toy in the first half, but seemed to cotton onto the fact the Steve Hoather was covered in Teflon as none of the visitors tackles stuck to him. Despite the rotund hooker struggling with the hilly pitch, Porritt persisted on giving him every second ball until he made a line break and fed captain Warden. Wetherby again broke into the 22, and James Gibson produced a fantastic finish to score a vital try, even if he did head butt the floor and knock himself out in the process. 21-17.

When you’re up by one score with ten minutes to go, cool heads are vital. Unfortunately Wetherby produced rugby that was more fitting of the circus. Ten percent Billy Cale had returned from university, but left his tackling pants in his uni halls. AJ Hills and Bradley Mason were tireless in defence, and when the ball came back on the Wetherby side the backs started their own game. Who could miscue their kick the most? First up was Jack Kaye, who could well have caught the ball at full-tilt but his noodle legs couldn’t create any power. Chris Atkinson produced his only touch of the game to take over the mantle of worst kick of the game. The very best effort came with time up on the clock as Jay from the Inbetweeners, otherwise known as Gareth Plant tried his hardest to give Roundhegians the game. His kick straight down their winger’s throat with inly clear grass in front of him was only relieved as the referee kindly decided not to cancel an advantage for a knock-on, giving Wetherby a much-needed win!

Full-Time: Wetherby 21-17 Roundhegians

Another tight game, made way tighter than it should have been. When you factor in the cancelled game last week, and the two week break approaching, Wetherby will enter the year on a one month unbeaten run.

MoM: James Gibson – Could have gone to a number of players, but this guy scores tries in his sleep. Literally.
DoD: Gareth Plant – Next time he kicks like that, I’ll kick him!