Poor Decisions Cost Morpeth Dear

Morpeth Colts 5 Wigton Colts 29

Morpeth began the match with a win behind them, and where eager to extend the run.

Ollie Smith did the honours and got the match underway with a drop kick into Wigton territory, who carried the ball firmly and physically into Morpeth defenders, and with that set the tone for the remained of the game.

Morpeth once again started well, and would have been rewarded for their hard rucking and attacking play, but Morpeth failed to capitalise on Wigton indiscipline and missed two opportunities to put Morpeth on the scoreboard, Wigton, however, were not so wasteful, and put away their penalty to take the lead and make the score 3-0

Morpeth backs, however, did not help Morpeth as their approach of running the ball out of their own 22 did not prove successful, as that and poor defending around the ruck resulted in Wigton breaking the deadlock with their scrumhalf touching down under the posts.

Morpeth got their best attack of the half by using the forwards to gain space before going blind and attacking down the right flank, however this attack turned to into nothing and Wigton turned the ball over and cleared their lines.

The half finished with the score at 10-0.

Morpeth started the second half how they started the first, with aggressive rucking and hard tackling, however their backs lacked some vision and as a result allowed Wigton to score two tries with cheeky kicks behind the back line, with them both being converted Wigton took the score to 24-0.

Morpeth heads started to drop as Wigton picked up the tempo and thinned out the Morpeth defensive line by making them commit more and more forwards into the breakdown situation. Wigton then flung the ball out wide, and with the help of some poor defending, saw themselves once again over the Morpeth try line; however the conversion was missed this time to take the score to 29-0.

Instead of letting their heads drop even more, Morpeth embarked on their best attacking play of the whole match, the big forwards rumbled forwards, bringing in more and more Wigton defenders who were anxious to keep a clean sheet, after a period of prolonged pressure by the forwards, it was judged a good time to go wide, and as centre Grant Cavner fixed his man and pass it outside to winger James Jones, who fully exploited an overlap to score in the corner, a missed conversion made the final score 5-29 to Wigton, a score which did not reflect the competitiveness of the match.