Tykes Gala Evening

Fly-Half Battle?
By Oopnorth on 14/1/2002
January 14 2003

The Tykes play their first game against Scottish opposition when they take on the Borders side at Galashiels this Friday. This fixture was arranged to plug the gap in the fixture list, now that the Tykes are no longer in the Powergen and Parker Pen Cup competitions.

Phil Davies has said that he will be taking a full strength side and expects a highly competitive match. Tykes supporters will be hoping that the form shown in the recent dismissal of Bath will continue in a tricky away fixture albeit a friendly. Most interest will centre on how far our recent injury problems are overcome and how easily returners will slot back into the side as we look ahead to the remaining 8 Premiership games over the rest of the season.

We expect to see Scott Benton starting and the snappy half back pairing with Ross give the Tykes a wider range of attacking options than of late. We hope to see George Harder at least on the bench and given a good run out; and Gavin Kerr fit to play and strengthen the front row. Other Scots returning up north and no doubt keen to remind Scottish fans what they have been missing will be Cammy Mather and Carl Hogg. So with the rest of the squad refreshed by holidays and the joys of running up the hills at Roundhay Park, it looks a good game in prospect.

Borders beat the last Zurich team they played - the Falcons in pre-season and will be tough opponents at home. Re-established prior to this season they brought together a squad of returners to Scotland such as Graham, Armstrong and Weir from Newcastle, the big ex Falcons lock Richard Metcalfe, squad players from the two city teams looking to relocate, plus up and coming talent from the Borders area. Also in common with the Tykes they have two Samoans Sititi and Vili in their squad so Zac and George will soon feel at home. Players tipped as stars of the future are the young tight-head Douglas, the recently capped winger Nikki Walker, and the ex-Rhinos centre Gareth Morton.

They have a well respected Kiwi coach Tony Gilbert. As a new team you would expect them to struggle in their first year and to date more games have been lost than won. Borders have however posted victories over Glasgow (twice), and their best win in the Celtic League has to be a win at home over Leinster. They also lost to Ponty by just one point at Sardis Road. In the Parker Pen they accounted easily for Madrid but lost two tight games to Montauban. Their most recent fixture was a comprehensive defeat by Edinburgh in a niggly game which led to citings of players on both teams.

Most interest in the Scottish press is in the head to head at fly-half between Gordon Ross and Gregor Townsend. Both players have their advocates as starting choice for Scotland. Both will want to impress - to get the edge on each other and to keep the rumblngs in the Scottish press about trying out Chris Paterson as fly-half quiet.

As Netherdale has undersoil heating the pitch should not be hard even after the cold spell in Scotland over the weekend. There has however been heavy rain over the last couple of days and milder temperatures so the going may be heavy and it will be interesting to see the tactics the coaches choose to employ. Borders will overall want the win over the auld enemy at any price I would guess, whilst the Tykes will be wanting to see how the returners go, avoid further injuries, but keep up morale with another away win at a tough venue.