By John R
February 28 2006

Our friends from Wuss came in strength to witness yet another episode of the Tykes revival, but went home with just a loosing bonus, because we won!!

After the excellent performance at Sale, (where we wuz robbed!) high hopes of repeat  play, (but not the same result please,) were in the air at Headingley on a very cold last Friday night which kept the numbers down to 3,718, the lowest home attendance of the season.

 

And so it proved, for a while. Tykes kicked off and at full chat, stayed in the Wuss half until Chris Bell crossed in the corner on four minutes! Good start, but Roland missed the kick from far out. 5-0.

Another six minutes pressure resulted in a penalty, again far out and another miss!! Roland not kicking well tonight! However, just a few minutes later he improved as another penalty was landed, so 8-0.

 

Wuss replied through Drahm for 8-3 but soon Biggs was away on yet another of his rampaging runs which petrify opposition spectators, eventually finding Dunbar who made ground. Chris Bell continued the move, passing to Gerber, who took it on and DeMarigny was on his shoulder when required and crossed, then kicked the conversion, 15-3. That’s better! Drahm reduced the deficit before half time with a penalty 15-6.

 

Half time arrived and things were looking good. Another two tries like that and bonus points! No problem! Drahm kicked a penalty & a drop goal 15-12, before Roland had two more penalties, only one of which landed, 18-12. A fine move with much handling saw the final pass to Rees dropped in the 22 with the line beckoning, unfortunate that! If Doherty had been on the end of that pass…………who knows?

 

By this time, the game had tended to stagnate a bit as Tykes tactics were completely wrong. We allowed ourselves to be drawn into a forwards mauling mess, (which we know Wuss are good at) rather than continuing the fast open handling game which up to now, had been decimating them!

 

At one point, we were camped on the Wuss line, for ever it seemed. All sorts of nonsense going on with Wuss being warned for all manner of infringements. Thoughts of a penalty try were high, but clearly referee Fox hadn’t heard of that one! He was very poor all night, for both sides! So were the Goons on touch, again! A blatant stamping on Hooper when under a ruck with the ball long gone was unnoticed, other than by most of the South Stand! Why do we have to put up with such ineptitude from officials?

 

Our lineout stuttered a bit, but in fairness the Wuss second row player Gilles has been disrupting line outs for all teams throughout the season. Lensing is improving slowly and it must have been tough in there, so why oh why didn’t we spin it out more to our dynamic backs?

 

The game drew slowly towards full time when almost in the last minute a penalty was gained. Roland kicked it for 21-12 and not only the win, but no bonus for Wuss!

 

No, read on! Wrong tactics again. The clock was now on zero and from the drop out, did we simply boot it into touch to end the game? Did we hell, we tried to play it and were penalised for holding!

Substitute Whatling kicked the penalty and that was that, 21-15. We had the win, but Wuss had gained a bonus with that kick. Pure stupidity!

 

I don’t think I have ever left Headingley feeling so disappointed after a win! We absolutely threw away a bonus point win, then gave the opposition a point by being bloody ridiculous! What was that all about? And why didn’t the players come out again to meet their fans? Who knows!

 

Biggs again was phenomenal, Nathan Thomas gets better every game and really the whole team played well enough, though using wrong tactics. Something was missing though. Can it be that Gordon Ross instils that certain something which makes all the difference? I have in the past been critical of his inconsitant kicking but his field play of late has been good, (very good at Sale.) Perhaps he was missed. Maybe he does do much, much more than we sometimes realise……………..?

 

No doubt he and Gavin Kerr enjoyed Saturday evening………………didn’t they deserve that? Well done them.   

 

Oh, and what’s with the Stewards? Heading for the South Stand from the cricket pitch side, in front of the scoreboard and forty minutes before kick off, we were not allowed to walk directly behind the posts, but had to go behind the wall?  Why? To prevent overcrowding!?! There must have been all of six people in that area…………….It was two nice young lady stewards, so they didn’t get a slagging, we simply laughed it off. Had it been the more usual, monosyllabic prats who habit this area, the outcome may have been different……

 

Get a grip Chief Steward! It’s not football you know, we can think for ourselves and don’t need leading by the nose………..

 

 

 

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