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Terrie the Hampster Eat My Team
By BrianC January 29 2005
The travelling faithful to our game at Leeds perhaps numbered a hundred or so. We approached this fixture at Headingley aware that it would be no easy task. So it turned out to be.

Weather conditions for most of the game were atrocious, as was the refereeing. We cannot however blame either for what in the end was a convincing victory by the Tykes. Quite simply they played better than us, doing to us what we have managed to do to so many other teams this season. The Tykes defence was in our faces the whole evening, they stopped us from playing. It wasn’t pretty but boy was it effective.

We started the game brightly enough, for most of the first ten minutes we were in the Tykes half. Having said that, be it our poor offence or the Tykes staunch defence we didn’t look close to crossing the gain line. This was set to be a game where the boot would dominate. Our lineout looked shaky throughout this game, it was the loss of one against the head that let the Tykes into our half where we conceded a penalty for holding on after twelve minutes. The Leeds fly half Gordon Ross duly converted this, as he did a subsequent penalty a few minutes later. With fifteen minutes on the clock we were six points down and facing an uphill task.

Our one chance to score in the first half was on 20 minutes when we were awarded a penalty for offside. Tofty missed this, it was not to be his night. His kicking skills, so much in evidence last week seemed to have deserted him in the Yorkshire rain.

The rest of the first half was scrappy to put it mildly. The ground became a mud field. Both teams struggled to get any decent passage of play together. We were pinged again for offside on 32 mins, Ross duly converted the penalty and we went in 9 – 0 down at half time.

There was not a lot for us to cheer about in the first half. The most amusing thing for me was the chorus of ‘Terrie the Tyke is a hamster’ which we got going in honour of their mascot, a dog which I assume is supposed to be a Yorkshire terrier. Give Terrie his due he took it very well. Indeed he is one of the best ZP mascots I have seen although not a patch on digger.

The weather eased a little at the start of the second half, with this respite we managed some decent pressure on the Leeds line. Our try, when it did come on 55 mins, was a thing of beauty. From a lineout on the Leeds 22 the ball was released at lightning speed. Four passes and no more than a few seconds later the ball was at the other side of the field and in the hands of Stan the man who put it down in the corner. At 9 – 5 with the conversion to come and the wind in our favour we now had every hope that we would make a fist of this.

Our optimism was to be short lived. First Tofty missed the difficult conversion. Then a few minutes later we were penalised in our own scrum on our 22. The Tykes took a quick tap penalty which caught us napping. Snyman danced past our defence and placed the ball down pretty well unchallenged. The subsequent conversion was to be the last score of the game.

The rest of the match was a slog in the mud and rain. We never again looked close to scoreing, indeed it was Leeds who had the upper hand for most of this period.

Though it may not seem so from the above I am not too disheartened by this result. It was a difficult game in tricky conditions. A different bounce here, another different referee decision there and this game could have gone the other way. To give the boys some credit they did not give up at any stage. Given the conditions the ball handling was remarkably good. Our main area of weakness, certainly in comparison to the Tykes, was with the forwards in open play.

One final word of thanks to the team, gutted though they must have been, they came out to acknowledge the travelling support. Win or loss, this is always greatly appreciated.

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