It might’ve been anything but a sunny day on the Fylde coast on Saturday afternoon, but Fylde supporters left the Woodlands with plenty to be beaming about, as their side kept up the unbeaten home league record with a win over Hull Ionians.
Conditions were definitely not set out to play to Fylde’s strengths, with the rain pouring down 30 minutes before kick-off and throughout the full 80, making it more of a focus on the pack rather than the slick outside backs.
The home side have been on a roll though as of late, beating Bournville in the last home match here back in the middle of October, before picking up two vital back-to-back wins on the road over Blaydon and Sheffield.
They made one change to the starting line-up from that win over Sheffield, with Ben O’Ryan coming in to start at blindside flanker for Matt Garrod, who missed out due to work commitments.
A further three changes were made to the bench, with Adam Lewis, Charlie Partington and Tom Forster all returning to the fold, as Fylde looked to keep on pushing towards those promotion places.
Hull Ionians on the other hand had made an impressive start to the season, winning three of their first four games in September before having a mixed run of fortune since which saw them come into the game below Fylde in the table in 6th place.
It was the first time both teams were meeting since 2019 where Fylde’s starting line-up that day included Bevan Rodd, who earned his 2nd cap for England yesterday in their – win over South Africa, and with the floodlights on, the stage was set for both teams to battle it out.
The game was like a chess match early on, with both teams looking for a way to break the other team down, but the visitors suffered two injuries within the opening 10 minutes which stopped either side from getting any real rhythm in the game.
Henry Hadfield then made an excellent break up the middle before being tackled, and when the defenders didn’t roll away on the ground, it resulted in Nathan Hill being sent to the sin bin.
Greg Smith slotted over the penalty for the first points of the match to push them into a 3-0 lead.
Both sides were still looking for that all important first try of the afternoon, and while we continued to wait for that, Smith converted another penalty goal to extend Fylde’s advantage to 6-0.
Fylde’s captain Ben Gregory then decided enough was enough, and he broke through the Ionians line before spinning the full-back and putting the ball down to score the game’s opening try.
Smith converted again to make it 13-0 before Nathan Hill made up for his earlier ill-discipline for the visitors with a try in the corner on the stroke of half-time to put them back in the contest.
The conversion was missed though, and it was Fylde 13-5 Hull Ionians at the break.
Hull had got themselves into the game now though, and after sustained pressure on the Fylde line, Ben Bell powered over from close range, Smith converted this time to reduce Fylde’s lead to a single point.
Fylde were having to really dig deep now, and when Scott Rawlings found Tom Carleton with a short pass inside their own 22, everyone in the crowd already knew what was going to happen next.
Carleton with his usual trademark burst of pace hit the line to perfection to break the Hull defence, and despite Nathan Hill doing his best to try and catch the Fylde Ferrari, he couldn’t, and Carleton had scored a game breaking try and the try of the match in the process.
Smith couldn’t convert the try, but when Stephenson was sin binned for Hull after giving a penalty away, Smith stepped up to put over another penalty goal and make it Fylde 21-12 Hull Ionians.
Adam Lewis had only returned to the side to help them out with their injury problems, and I bet he didn’t think he would be having a scoring return to the Woodlands but he did when he powered over off the back of a ruck for Fylde to do just that, and Smith converted to make it a full-time score of Fylde 28-12 Hull Ionians.
The win meant Fylde moved up to 3rd in the table, and even though they couldn’t secure the bonus point victory, joint head coach Alex Loney was delighted with how his side performed in the tricky conditions.
““We started off and the conditions were really tough, it was wet and we had to win that game line and those physicality battles early on”, Loney said.
He continued: “The try that they scored at the end of the first half was probably against the run of play, but we had to come out then and show good discipline and play that bit better and I’m happy with the overall team performance and even happier to get another win.”
Fylde’s forwards were simply sublime for the full 80 minutes, mixing it up with the Hull Ionians, and dominating them at times at the scrums and line-outs.
Olli Parkinson had an excellent all-round game, winning the ball at the line-out while also defending like a man possessed at times, and Phil Mills and Ben Gregory were also at their usual best, running hard and tackling even harder.
David Fairbrother was also doing David Fairbrother things, a break up the touchline in the second-half showing just how important of a player he is to Fylde, with him being able to do everything on the pitch for a full game.
Up next for Fylde is an away trip to the Luctonians before returning home for a mouth-watering clash with unbeaten league leaders Stourbridge who are the perfect 10 from 10 and only missed out on one bonus point so far.
This Fylde team is in form though and, at the minute, quite simply anything is possible.
Click here for Chris Farrow’s fine collection of action photos.
Teams
Fylde: Grimes (Forster 43); Hadfield, Carleton, Rawlings, Fisher: Smith, Sturgess; Kyle-Clay, Gregory, Bowker (Lewis 51), Parkinson, Blake, O’Ryan (Partington 78), Mills, Fairbrother.
Non-playing replacements: Parker, Lanigan.
Hull Ionians: Wilson; Thompson (Powell 8), Britton, Townend, Hill; Smith, McDaniel; Laverick (Morton 40), Stephenson, Thundercliffe (Bell 40), Mewburn, Makin, Holgate (Heelas 56), Hudson, Sanderson (Calvert 8).
