Fylde 20 Sheffield Tigers 11: report by Elliot Burrow
With the cold weather sweeping in across the UK and especially down on the Lytham coastline on Saturday afternoon, it was Fylde’s job to try and put on a blazing performance to warm up the fans in attendance.
However it didn’t quite play out that way, with Sheffield frustrating the home side all afternoon and the hosts just on so managing to do enough to make it seven from seven at home this season in the league and keep that 100% record intact.
The sun might have been out at The Woodlands, but it definitely wasn’t having the impact it should’ve been having on the temperatures.
It was a good enough performance from Fylde against the other Sheffield last week, and they made four changes to that side that picked up four points and kept the pressure on league leaders Sedgley.
Most notably was a debut for the club for scrum half Ben Gould, with Jordan Dorrington, Scott Rawlings and Matt Garrod all returning to the starting line-up.
Sheffield weren’t going to be an easy task though, they held the advantage over Fylde in the five meetings between the two so far, Sheffield winning the first three games with Fylde winning both encounters last season. They sat 8th in the table and played well against Wharfedale the week previous, to not only beat them but also leap frog them in the standings, and had plenty of power in the forwards to cause Fylde problems, and plenty of try scoring threats in the backs, with player coach Jamie Broadley, who was the side’s top scorer with six tries so far this season, taking up a place at fullback.
Kick off approached, the temperature dropped even more, and we were underway. Fylde started strongly as they always do at home, and were just starting to move through the gears when it looked as though a loose pass was going to see their attack breakdown.
Tom Carleton however didn’t see things that way, he picked the ball up off the ground and from 35 metres out danced his way through the Sheffield defence and shrugged off the covering fullback to score underneath the posts.
Greg Smith, who was making his 150th appearance for the club, slotted over the conversion to make it 106 points so far this season and put Fylde into an early 7-0 lead.
The ‘Tigers’ had been in good form though as of late, winning their last three and picking up an excellent 19-14 win over Rotherham away from home three weeks ago, and responded when Lewis Taylor slotted over a penalty, with regular goalkicker Mark Ireland watching on from the bench.
It didn’t stay that way for long though as Fylde responded to Sheffield getting up and running on the scoreboard with their second try off the afternoon. Camped on the visitors try line, David Fairbrother picked the ball up from the back of the ruck and darted over to score his second try of the season and extend Fylde’s lead to 12-3.
Sheffield were starting to turn this game into a back and forth one, with the ‘Tigers’ not going down without a fight and they came roaring back to put pressure on the Fylde defence with Simeon Meek going the closest, but they couldn’t get themselves over the line. Instead they settled for another penalty goal on 33 minutes through Mark Ireland who had come on off the bench, but he then missed another one before half-time, keeping the score at 12-6.
Fylde had seemingly started the fire in that first half, but had failed to add enough to it to keep it burning, with errors creeping into their game as the half went on.
Both sides continued to exchanged chances at the start of the second-half but neither managed to find that important score which would give them the advantage. Smith stayed calm and nudged over a penalty goal for Fylde to put them more than a converted try in front, then another period of pressure by the hosts resulted in Sheffield being reduced to 14 when Lewis Anderson was sin binned.
They soon made the extra man count, skipper Ben Gregory always made sure he led his team forward when games got tough, and he did the same here. A penalty kick to the corner from Smith set up the line-out, which saw Gregory bind on at his usually position at the back, pick up the ball, and jump out and barge his way over the line to score his 10th try of the season, and make it 20-6.
Try scorer Fairbrother was then sin binned for a high tackle, and Sheffield finally scored their first try of the game on 77 minutes when Josh Redfern barged his way over from close range.
Ireland is usually very reliable with the boot, but missed the important conversion attempt to keep the gap to over a converted score, Fylde going down to 13 men in the aftermath of that try, Matt Garrod had only returned to the pitch moments earlier after Olli Parkinson limped off but found himself being sin binned. They did go searching for the bonus point but again errors let them down, and in the end it finished 20-11.
It wasn’t Fylde at their best, who despite made that excellent start to the game to race into that 12-3 lead thanks to tries from Carleton and Fairbrother, failed to kick on. Still they wrapped up another win, and put another four points on the board to keep up the promotion hunt behind Sedgley.
A trip away for Fylde awaits them next week against new boys Otley who were promoted last season from the division below, before the week after they return to the Woodlands for derby day against Preston Grasshoppers in what should be an early Christmas cracker.
Star man: David Fairbrother – He might’ve been sin binned in the closing stages of the game, but his performance was excellent. His quick thinking early on in the game saw him dive over for his second try of the season, and he produced some superb moments in attack to try and spark the game into life and defended strongly to keep Sheffield at bay for most of the game.
Game breaking moment: The try from skipper Ben Gregory to make it 20-6 put Fylde in a great position with only 15 minutes to play and in the end proved enough for Fylde to wrap up the win and four points despite Sheffield fighting back late on.
Click here for Chris Farrow’s album of splendid photographs.
Line-ups:
Fylde: Wilkinson; Carleton, Stott, Rawlings (Dorrington 55), Dorrington (Grimes 40); Smith, Gould; Bowker (Barrow 63), Gregory, Ashcroft (Altham 40), Parkinson (Garrod 73), Garrod (Corrie 40), Harrison, Higginson (Woodman 40), Fairbrother.
Sheffield Tigers: Broadley; Frewin (Ireland 9), Wallace, Taylor, Awoko; Wager (Holmes 48), Down; Bennett, Archer, Meek (Bingham 44), Sword (Scott 51), Fitzsimmons, Calladine (Anderson 71), Anderson (Hughes 70), Redfern.