Prestwich Sport
Sedgley aim for three on bounce
7:00am Thursday 10th November 2011
RICH Senior is urging Sedgley players to keep their focus as they target a third straight win at home to Stourbridge on Saturday.
The Whitefield men produced a thrilling 29-28 victory at Wharfedale last weekend to further boost their confidence.
And with Stourbridge currently propping up National League One, the opportunity is there to build on their two recent victories.
But head coach Senior is aware of the pitfalls of taking the bottom club for granted.
“We have to guard against complacency of course. It’s such a competitive league,” he said. “The desire to work hard is very important, the minute you take your foot off the pedal you are in trouble. “What we were pleased with on Saturday was that we were the better team and when we needed to show desire to work and close the game out we did it. We need to show that again and again if we want to get where we want to be.”
Looking back at Saturday’s victory, which saw his side remain 10th but move to within eight points of third place, he said: “It was very close and we didn’t help ourselves by giving them a couple of soft tries.
“We played a lot of good rugby. We always thought we would win it and it was all about closing it out in the last 10 minutes, which we did well.
“Now we have some more games coming up that we have targeted to win.
“If we win three out of the next four everything looks entirely different.”
The Tigers have one of their charity days on Saturday when they will be playing in a fluorescent yellow kit and holding special activities to raise money for the children’s ward at North Manchester General.
The game kicks off at 2.30pm and Tigers will be looking to replicate the positive elements of last weekend when they faced a Wharfedale side coming into the game on the back of two narrow away defeats, started strongly.
Hooker Ben Sowrey opened the scoring for the home side after 11 minutes and Mike Dutton cancelled out the try with brilliant solo effort which saw him outrun a string of opponents from his own half. Matt Riley put Sedgley ahead with the conversion.
The balance swung Wharfedale’s way when Philip Woodhead scored their second try on 25 minutes, James Druce kicking the conversion.
The Tigers pack kicked into life and did a bit of muscling up of their own now as in the final 15 minutes of the half it was all Sedgley Park.
With captain Garth Dew in dominant form and Louis McGowan and Fraley Hopa impressive, Sedgley regained the lead when Juan Crous found Matt Riley to score on 35 minutes with Matt Riley kicking the conversion.
Wharfedale edged into a 15-14 half-time lead with a penalty on 39 minutes from James Druce.
Greg Smith replaced the injured Mike Dutton at half time and Richard Wainwright marked a man-of-the-match performance with the first try of the second period.
A Wharfedale penalty closed the gap before Tigers stepped up a gear. Smith produced an impressive solo try to earn the four-try bonus point and extended the lead with the conversion.
Tigers then contributed to their own problems when two mistakes were capitalised upon by Warfedale with two tries and a conversion which edged them back ahead.
An inspired call by the Tigers to introduce inspirational scrum half Chris Wilkinson, who was coming back from a long injury lay-off, proved a masterstroke.
With both Adam Lewis and Crous putting in big shifts, Tigers got a foothold in the game and Greg Smith kept a cool head to score a penalty to take a lead the Whitefield men held onto well for victory.