By Oopnorth on 18/1/2003
January 18 2003

No dancers. The theme - WE ARE THE BORDERS played, whilst a girl on a white horse circled the field 3 times holding a flag. That she and the horse nearly went belly up as they met the first muddy corner might have been an omen about the game to come. But it proved to be competitive and entertaining.

Early Pressure

The Tykes began the game and maintained some early pressure. They looked up for it and determined to play off the front foot. This resulted in an early penalty just in front of the posts and Tykes decided to take the points and get settled and on the scoreboard. BVS stroked the ball over, and as an indicator of how the rest of the game was played that was the only penalty the Tykes aimed at the posts in the whole game.

Borders however looked lively particularly on the break and were also determined to run the ball as much as they could. This was a credit to both teams as the weather was foul with driving wind, bitter cold, and hard rain making handling and kicking conditions very difficult. About twenty minutes in the big Samoan No8 Sititi (who along with the Full Back Samoan Vili featured strongly all the game) broke in midfield and the ball was recycled quickly to Walker on the wing. He took advantage of a gap caused by a Tykes defender stumbling in the mud and raced through for an uncoverted try. This was the best period of the game for the home side and they were soon pressing again on the Tykes line and the Borders hooker drove over again in the corner. Once more the conversion was missed and the Tykes were 10-3 down and in a real scrap.

Vintage Stuff!

Tykes hit back from the restart when Palmer broke tackles in the midfield to run in near the posts. BVS added the afters and things looked better at 10-10. Tykes had recovered composure and nearing half time Ross put a penalty into the corner and Matt Holt went over from the line out drive. The Borders crowd were appreciative of the conversion kick which was vintage BVS.

Substitutions

The second half began with a host of substitutions from both sides, as both coaches were true to their word in using all their 22 in the fixture. Tykes rested BVS with Dan moving to the centre, and the whole of the pack changed except for Chris Murphy who had clearly upset the coach and got the joy of a full 80 minutes in these conditions. It was the Tykes who profited most from this with the players who went on busting to get on with it, and as a result the Tykes pack had much the better of the second half with Rawlinson, Campbell and Ponton putting in some hard running. Apart from BVS (the rubber man) Rawlinson seemed to take the only other bad knock of the day but he finished the game well.

Back to the match. Borders back line continued to spread the ball and prove a threat. This culminated in a try for the wing Longstaff after a good spell of recycling in the Tykes half. 15-17. However the dominance of the Tykes pack particularly in the loose supplied possession and a stream of penalties as the home side struggled to keep the Tykes out. A yellow card resulted for collapsing the line out by Borders, and stretched even further, Ross managed to split the defence with one of his nifty breaks and Dan S was on hand to put the ball over the line. Ross kicked the goal and Tykes were comfortable and had the game in hand, although - as throughout the game - they had to watch for the quick Border back-line. Further pressure on the Border line provided further scoring opportunities which were just let down by the final pass. The Borders central defences were aggressive and hard to breach throughout, but the game ended 24-15 to Leeds Tykes.

The Battle of Fly-Halves

Scottish coach Ian McGeechan was in the stand. Mostly the fly-half honours had ended about even. Goggsy made a try and his distribution from hand was as good as the conditions would allow. His kicking was not faultless however.

Scott Benton completed a good 60 minutes and looked sharp on the break. And it was good to see George Harder come on with 10 minutes to go and produce one or two of his trademark 'here I am' runs up the middle.

The Borders fans were good hosts and appreciated the visit of a Zurich Premiership side. The crowd was about 3000 I would guess and there were a sprinkling of Tykes who had made the journey. We should be happy with another away win at a hard place and in difficult conditions and look forward to the match at Bristol.

A True Test?

Afterwards mulling the match over, I suddenly thought how like 'old fashioned' rugby this had been, with both sides generally trying to spin the ball to the backs; and little up the jumper stuff which would most likely have been the tactics in a competitive ZP game.

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