The Black Reds gave a good account of themselves for 50 minutes of this game. Indeed at half time they looked capable of winning on the road for the first time this season. Unfortunately, the first score of the second half went to Tyldesley and confidence visibly drained away from the visitors who stumbled to another defeat.
On a cold, dry afternoon at St George’s Park the visitors started with intent and were quickly on the scoreboard when stand-off, Jack Clegg clipped over a 4th minute penalty from 35 meters. This advantage was negated on 8 minutes but it was the visitors who had the early ascendancy. They should have had the lead on 11 minutes when referee Mike Singer penalised Tyldesley for an illegal tackle, unfortunately an Aspatria player wanted to meet out his own revenge and the penalty was reversed. The lead did come on 13 minutes, again from a Clegg’s penalty. At this point Aspatria were in control but minutes later again pressed the destruct button. Players from both teams were involved in a brawl on the half way line and the referee made an example of a player from each side. Mark Beverley was the man sent to the bin for Aspatria.
The disruption effected Aspatria more than the home side who from that point began to edge back into the game and had several scoring chances before finally breaching the Aspatria line on 19 minutes. The score was unconverted to leave Tyldesley 10:6 ahead.
From the restart, Aspatria pressed hard. Indeed they had the confidence to spurn two kickable penalties as they blitzed the Tyldesley line. They would be disappointed to come away from the home line with no reward. As the half passed the 30 minute mark, Aspatria did have a golden opportunity to snatch back the lead. The visitors were awarded a penalty in their own half that scrum half Heinie Jonker took quickly. He did well to burst through the first line of defence but failed to get the ball away to his backline who had an overlap of two men.
Aspatria continued to fight hard and often had good field position. On 35 minutes hard running by forwards, Mark Beverley and David Humes led to another penalty opportunity for Clegg, who slotted over to continue his 100% record, bringing the score back to 10:9. This seemed to be it for the half but more indiscipline from Aspatria gave Tyldesley a penalty opportunity with the last kick to end the half 13: 9 to the good.
Aspatria would be well pleased with their work ethic in the first half. Frankly, Tyldesley were there for the beating, sadly for Aspatria’s travelling support it all went wrong in the second period. Aspatria started well enough but on 50 minutes Tyldesley ran a ball from their own 22. Several Aspatria players had opportunities to put in tackles and stop the move: all were missed gifting the home side a try under the posts. At 20:9 Aspatria seemed to have the stuffing knocked out of them and what followed was a catalogue of poor decision making and missed tackles. In the next 25 minutes Aspatria could barely get out of their own half and in the process conceded three more tries, two conversions and a drop goal to take the home side clear at 42:9.
Perhaps it was stung pride that spurred Aspatria on to one last effort in the dying minutes. Excellent work by winger, Walter Cloete moved the ball to within a metre of the home line where he selflessly passed inside for prop, Graham Andrews to crash over for the consolation try. Clegg converted from the touchline to give a final score of 42:16.
This defeat too one of Aspatria’s main relegation rivals is a major blow to the club’s ambition to remain in North 1 West. At the half way point in the league it will require a massive effort from the Bower Park boys to claw their way to safety.
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