Fylde sin again but secure second-place finish

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Fylde 28 Otley 10: match report by Elliot Burrow

Sunshine, yellow cards, and a few excellent tries along the way, all in an afternoon’s work for Fylde as they rounded off their last home game of the season with a hard fought 28-10 win over Otley.

Despite the weather being glorious, it took both teams a while to warm to the task, Fylde had their chances through breaks from Tom Grimes and Connor Wilkinson but failed to convert them, while the visitors were enjoying all their success in the scrums.

The visitors scored the first points of the afternoon through a penalty goal only five minutes before half-time, but Fylde grabbed the opening try thanks to Tom Carleton, and soon found themselves 14-3 up after 42 minutes gone.

After suffering two sin bins though they found themselves on the back foot, but Otley couldn’t produce any sort of comeback, and tries from Cole Potts and another from Wilkinson sealed the victory which meant they finished the season off unbeaten at home, with 12 wins and one draw.

Head coaches Chris Briers and Alex Loney made three changes to the side that picked up all five points on the road over in Sheffield last time out, Ben Gould coming back in at scrum-half, alongside Tristan Woodman returning to the pack, and Sam Parker taking the place of skipper Ben Gregory who missed out through injury.

Their hopes of finishing top of the table and clawing back Sedgley’s lead were extremely low, with the league leaders only needing one more win to wrap up promotion the division one.
They were however out for revenge this afternoon, as they looked to avenge that narrow 28-27 loss to the visitors at their place back in February, which gave them their second defeat of the season and dealt their push for top spot a severe blow.

Otley had enjoyed a fairly successful campaign back in division two, winning 15 games and sitting in fourth place overall on 76 points.

A strong and tall set of forwards was evident from the warm-up, with Alex Johnson quite literally the stand-out player reaching around six foot eight in height, meaning it could be a long day at the line-outs for Fylde with him involved.

Callum Irvine kicked proceedings off for the afternoon for Otley, as they played towards the clubhouse, meaning Fylde would finish the game heading towards their favoured end of the ground in the second-half.

Chances were few and far between in the opening stages of the match, neither side wanting to get the scoreboard up and running it seemed.

Some loose line-outs and an early dominance from Otley at the scrums was counter-attacked by Fylde’s backline, Connor Wilkinson making an excellent break with some of his well renowned quick feet creating an opening, but failing to convert.

Tom Grimes then produced a moment of brilliance to dart through the Otley defence, but as he headed towards the try-line he was met with an excellent cover tackle and knocked the ball on five metres out from the whitewash.

20 minutes had passed and the scoreboard still hadn’t been used, but Fylde were reduced to 14 when Jordan Dorrington was sent to the sin-bin after it was judged he had tackled the Otley winger in the air.

Those 10 minutes passed with no side being able to break the deadlock, and as Dorrington was ready to return to the pitch, it momentarily became 14 versus 14 when Otley’s Jack Gilmartin was shown a yellow card for a deliberate knock on.

After 35 minutes we were finally graced with our first points of the afternoon when Callum Irvine slotted over a penalty goal for the away side to edge them into a 3-0 lead, but he went from hero to zero minutes later when he was sin-binned.

Fylde kicked through and set-up a two on one with the full-back, but as Tom Carleton passed the ball to the supporting player Irvine knocked it down deliberately and was sent for a 10 minute spell on the sidelines.

Carleton took full advantage for Fylde when he slipped through a gap out-wide to score, Greg Smith converted to make it 7-3 at half-time.

A slow burner of a first-half, but it didn’t take long for the action to get going in the second when Connor Wilkinson scored under the posts in the opening two minutes, Smith converting to take it to 14-3.

Upper hand to Fylde, but the visitors weren’t going away, sticking to their game plan, and grinding away up the middle.

They couldn’t score, but they hurt Fylde with what almost seemed to be a never ending period of scrums, first David Fairbrother being sent to the sin-bin, before Sam Parker joined him for another scrum offense to reduce them to 13.

Backs to the wall defending from Fylde ensued, and a few more scrums just for good measure, but they couldn’t hold out from the barrage that was taking place, Duncan Darling finding himself in acres of space out-wide to touch down and score in the corner for Otley, with Irvine converting to bring it back to 14-10.

The hosts didn’t fancy losing their unbeaten home league record this season though at the last hurdle and rallied, the returning David Fairbrother influential as ever, as he produced a superb break to set up the supporting Cole Potts who raced away to score, Smith made it three from three to wrestle back control.

All that was needed now was the bonus point, and Wilkinson made sure they got that, with Smith keeping his 100% record from the tee intact to convert, 28-10, game, set, and match Fylde.

Second place secured for Fylde, but the title race was over, Sedgley’s 80-14 win over Sheffield Tigers meaning they couldn’t be caught now despite Fylde still having two games to play.

Chester next week, then the re-arranged trip to Huddersfield on the last game of the season awaits them before they all get a well earned break ahead of the next one.

10 more points to play for though until both players and coaches can start thinking about putting on the sombreros and flip flops, but at least they don’t have to face any cold and wet winter matchdays again anytime soon.

Click here for Chris Farrow’s superb action photo album.

Line-ups

Fylde: Carleton, J.Dorrington (Bell 71), Wilkinson, Rawlings (Turner 28), Grimes, Smith, Gould (Potts 71), Bowker (Lewis 22), Parker, Ashcroft (Bell 22), Parkinson, Harrison, Woodman, Higginson, Fairbrother. Replacements: Bell (Ashcroft 58), Lewis (Bowker 58), Robinson, Potts, Turner (Lewis 69).

Otley: Irvine, Taylor, Wells, C.Morgan, E.Morgan, Crossland, Gaffney, Nicholls, Cole, Ward, Gilmartin, Johnson, Preston-Routledge, Hodge, Malthouse. Replacements: Gibson, Thiart, Moss, Rowntree, Darling.

Star man: Toby Harrison – Toby has been excellent this season and was the same again here. For 80 minutes he didn’t take a backwards step, carrying the ball forward with his usual enthusiasm, and defending in such a way that makes him a brick wall at times. The only blemish on his perfect performance was his forward pass to Connor Wilkinson when he had to try-line begging on the stroke of half-time which would’ve given Fylde a 14-3 lead at the break.

Game breaking moment: Sin bins threatened to derail Fylde in the second-half, with David Fairbrother being one of them, but when he returned, he was brilliant, and set-up Cole Potts for his try which seemingly swung the momentum back in Fylde’s favour and sealed the victory.

Referee: Geraint Roberts

Attendance: 912