Prestwich Sport
In-form Tigers aim high
3:00pm Thursday 17th November 2011
SEDGLEY Park are looking to finish the first half of the National League One season in the top five.
Three straight wins leave the Whitefield men ninth but just six points behind Saturday’s opponents, third-placed Rosslyn Park.
And with bottom half sides Blaydon and Barking coming up to complete the first half of the season, Rich Senior’s men are confident they can continue their climb.
A 43-35 home victory over second-bottom Stourbridge on Saturday was anything but a formality as the strugglers pushed the Tigers all the way.
But Sedgley produced enough quality attacking rugby to build confidence, as long as they can improve the defensive side of their game.
Assistant coach Rob Smith believes the team has the potential to finish among the high-flyers this season, and that they should go to Rosslyn with confidence, despite the opposition’s impressive 16-10 win at second-placed Fylde on Saturday.
“With the squad we have this year we should be at least half way,” Smith said.
“With confidence and a lot of hard work we could be top five, hopefully. But we have to keep working on it.
“We have not got a bad record against Rosslyn Park. We beat them twice last year and we are pretty confident.
“Then we’ve got Blaby and Barking after that. We just need to pick up two or three wins and we won’t be in the position we were in last year.”
On last Saturday’s performance, he said: “We had to work for it. We started a bit slow and were 13-0 down towards the back end of the first half.
“We played really well after that. We played some really good attacking rugby and we are forever working on defence on the training ground.”
Tigers had to recover from a slow start against Stourbridge which saw the visitors score two quick tries in the first 17 minutes and then capitalise on their early dominance with a further three points on 25 minutes. The Park Laners responded with their first try straight from the re-start when good work from forwards Nick Flynn and Juan Crous created chaos in the Saxons defence and space out wide for Fergus Owen to exploit. Matt Riley kicked the conversion and it proved to be a turning point as Stourbridge’s defence started to leave holes. Following big runs from Fraley Hopa and Louis McGowan, Simon Parrott found a tiny space and danced round several tacklers to touch down, Riley kicking the extras to give his side a one-point lead after 34 minutes. The gap was extended three minutes later when winger Mike Dutton finished a good move after the forwards once more created the space out wide, Riley converting again. With confidence running high, Sedgley scored again straight from the kick off as another good break saw outside centre Fergus Owen bash through the Stour defence and pass to Jamie Harrison who put on the after burners to touch down for the bonus point. Stourbridge refused to lie down and scored their third try on 48 minutes. Tigers hit back four minutes later when three huge runs by McGowan, Crous and Adam Lewis set up the smallest of gaps for winger Jamie Harrison to sneak through and touch down. Never-say-die Stourbridge came back with another big push, and two quick tries made it 31-30 with 18 minutes left. As the balance of play continued to swing, Tigers captain Garth Dew finished off great forward pressure with a try on 71 minutes, the visitors’ Nathan Bressington touched down three minutes from time, then, with Stourbridge pushing for the winning try, man-of-the-match Dew intercepted a pass and ran the full length of the field to seal the victory.