Wirral 15, Blaydon 19

THE end of this match was marred by two serious injuries to key Wirral players late in the game which, no doubt, affected the result of this closely contested game.

Playing with the breeze it was Blaydon who started the stronger, with their strong running backs, and took the lead in the 12th minute when from a position in the Wirral 20m area created an overlap for winger, Jack Appleton to score in the corner, this was not converted.

Gradually, the home team worked their way into the game although they were not helping themselves with a number of dropped passes and technical errors.

Both teams were making progress downfield when in possession.

On 31 minutes a period of play in the Blaydon area resulted in Rob Pearl scoring from a delayed pass from Craig Harvey and converted by Craig 7-5 and this was the score at half-time.

Just after the second half started, a kick over the Wirral defence was missed by the home side which gave the Blaydon second row Lockwood an easy touchdown, which was converted.

Wirral immediately hit back when from the next period of play in the Blaydon 20m, pressure told with a Craig Harvey try in the corner to level the scores at 12 all.

Wirral were in the ascendency and took the lead with a long distance penalty from Craig which followed a deliberate punch from the opposition second row, which should have led to a red card.

A good bout of passing gave Blaydon field position from where Blaydon scored what were to be the winning points, aided by a missed tackle and with the conversion gave the away side a 15-19 lead.

At this stage the Wirral influential back row left the field with a serious knee injury.

The final minutes of the game were played in the Blaydon 20m area.

Four minutes from the end of the game in normal time, captain Craig Harvey was injured with a knee in the back.

Play was held up for 20 minutes as he was carefully stretched off in a neck brace.

When play resumed Wirral were hammering away at the Blaydon line whose defence was stout despite giving away numerous penalties and having a man sin-binned.

Play ran over the allotted time as Wirral sought to score the try to give them victory but when held up over the line this was deemed as the end of the match and were thus denied victory.

Again like all their previous league matches, this was a game that Wirral should have won but small mistakes are leading to these defeats.