W 25-29

By Charlie Hopper

Despite being 15-0 down midway through the first-half, in-form Scarborough staged a thrilling comeback to win 29-25 in their North One East fixture at West Hartlepool.

It was the home side who started stronger and made the most of the early possession. In the 5^th minute they scored the game’s first points with a penalty to the right of the posts.  Fly-Half Stu Waites making easy work to give his side a 3-0 lead. Scarborough were then put under even more pressure and the hosts managed to score a converted try 5 minutes later thanks to Ryan Painter, leaving the score at 10-0. A defensive error from the visitors meant that West could scramble over for an unconverted try and stretch their lead, Painter scoring his second try, 15-0. Having experienced a pretty tough first 20 minutes, Simon Smith’s side managed to get themselves on the scoreboard. Scrum-half Jordi Wakeham, who picked the ball up from the back of the ruck, sent a box kick over the West defence for Jonti Holloway to collect and crash over. Wakeham converting from a difficult angle, 15-7. They then managed to finish the first-half in the best possible way with their persistent pressure finally paying off. Henry Hocking managing to sneak through for a converted try, 15-14.

The Silver Royd outfit started the second-half quickly and after some good build up play the comeback was complete. Billy Parker managing to bulldoze his way over and score under the posts, Wakeham adding the extras for 21-15. In the 52-minute, West closed the gap with a try of their own. Connor Mclurg dashing over in the corner with the difficult conversion missed by Waites, leaving the score at 21-20. The highly experienced Graeme Jeffrey then saw the game’s first yellow 58 minutes in. The match however evened itself up after Painter joined the Scarborough man in the bin after he was handling the ball in the ruck. Simon Smith’s side then looked to take full control of the game and went in search of that elusive bonus-point try. Despite a deliberate knock-on distrupting a previous attack, the visitors managed to spread the ball out wide and winger Tom Anderson avoided the tackles to score in the corner. The conversion was missed to leave it 26-20. With the tension rising at Brinkburn, Wakeham kicked over a penality in the 75^th minute to extend his sides lead. With only a couple of minutes left Owen Westhorp scored his sides fourth try as he found space out wide to sneak in at the corner. With Waites missing the conversion it shortened the gap to 29-25. Although the home side collected the restart they were driven into touch and the full-time whistle was blown.

Another superb victory for Scarborough who sit one point clear at the top of North One East. Next up at Silver Royd is the crunch game against rivals York, kick-off 3pm

Teams

Scarborough: 1. nino cutino 2. stuart smyth 3. joe nellist 4. luke brown 5. phil watson 6. ryan fowler 7. euan govier 8. drew govier 9. jordan wakeham 10. henry hocking 11. tom anderson 12. billy parker 13. angus frend 14. graeme jeffrey 15. jonty holloway
Substitutes: 16. matty jones 17. jordan holloway 18. will leah

Scarborough News "Man of the Match": jonty holloway

The young full-back excelled for Scarborough, bagging a try of his own and providing plenty of key defensive tackles. Other stand-out performances were from Henry Hocking, Billy Parker, Jordi Wakeham, Phil Watson and Nino Cutino.