Prestwich Sport
Wounded Tigers go in for kill
8:30am Thursday 19th January 2012
SEDGLEY Tigers assistant coach Dave Peet is hoping for a winning response following their 29-13 home defeat to National League One high-flyers Fylde when they travel to face Birmingham and Solihull on Saturday.
The Midlands side are currently second-bottom in the table, but he believes his men are facing a difficult encounter after being alerted to the club’s recent upturn in form recently.
“It is going to be a tough one,” he said. “They are doing well at the moment. They have won their last two games and are in fine form,” Peet said.
“We need a result from Damson Park if we want to kick start our season, but it is always difficult away from home.
“We will simply just have to keep the lads fit and play at our best.”
Peet was disappointed with the result in their last outing at Park Lane when there was all to play for before Nick Royle’s interception killed off the Tigers’ hopes of capitalising on their man advantage following Tom Lavelle’s yellow card.
“I am disappointed with the result as it was a critical game,” he said. “Everything was going okay. The score was 22-13 and there was all to play for until the 65th minute, when Royle scored the final try of the game,” he said.
“When Lavelle was yellow carded we started to push on. We were very unfortunate not to get a try. We were really pressurising the Fylde defence for a good five minutes and hats of to them, they remained solid. We were very unfortunate not to reduce the deficit at that point.”
In the last 10 minutes of the first half Louis McGowan and Tom Davies got sin-binned and Peet believes that Sedgley did well to hold off Fylde in the dying minutes of the first period.
“They were both justified yellow cards and I think we defended superbly with 13 men,” continued Peet. “We cannot be too hard on the team because Fylde are having a great season so far. They are second in the table and are in great form.”
The Tigers started well, dominating for almost 30 minutes but they could only earn eight points due to a solid opposition defence. The first points of the game came as Fylde gave a penalty away and Will Runciman kicked over the three points. Hard work from the home forwards helped former Fylde player Juan Crous burst through the defence in the eighth minut, but the conversion was missed.
Fylde opened their account when Richard Kenyon sent over a difficult kick 35 metres out before a fine passage of forward play set up a try, between the posts from inside centre Mike Waywell, and the extras were duly added.
With second half underway, and Tigers back to 15, Fylde managed to notch their second try after ex-Tiger Chris Briers went over, Kenyon once again converting.
Mike Dutton scored an unconverted try on the right wing on 49 minutes and Evan Stewart got Fylde’s third try on 52 minutes, with the conversion also missed.
With the score at 20-13, the visitors’ tight head prop, Lavelle, was yellow carded for hands in a ruck and Tigers took advantage of their extra man to push forward in a bid to grab the all-important third try.
With the Fylde defence stretched, a Matt Riley long pass was intercepted by Royle who ran the entire length of the field for the bonus point and the final try of the game, with Kenyon providing the extras.