Messy beaucoup

  Yorkshire Carnegie lost 32 – 23 at home to newly-promoted Doncaster in what was an attritional and very messy match. As I struggled to get to the ground in time for the 2.30 kick-off due to a 50 mile cycling club run, it was disappointing to hear that Chris Jones had failed a late fitness test, and our wafer-thin squad was going to be stretched even further....      

The match started with a scrumfest and then some rugby started being played after about 10 minutes. And it was Donny playing it. Deservedly they went into the lead but, for me it was in a mysterious manner. After a sustained period of pressure they put in a grubber kick in the right hand corner which seemed to be reached first by a Carnegie player (and this seemed to be confirmed by the replay on the big screen) However a penalty try was awarded, not sure what for and also not sure if a yellow card was involved. I was concentrating on the play, was completely sober (I take the responsibility of match-day reporting seriously, and anyway I didn’t have time to get to the bar), had the benefit of the wise counsel of the South Stand Ultras, but remained mystified. I will speak about the match-day experience later.

So 0 – 7 and Carnegie were lacking intensity at this stage, missing a few tackles, although the stand-out player so far was Phil Neilson. But a fight-back ensued, and following a Donny yellow card Jon Clarke got over on the left, the conversion hitting the post. So 5 – 7. Donny started to penetrate our defensive line using Route One, with their forwards crashing, carrying and offloading well. A deserved penalty to them and it was 5 – 10. The score was evened-up to ten all when our sponsored player, David McIlwaine, scored an unconverted try resulting from a lineout, following an arrogant kick to the corner from a penalty. Nevertheless play was messy, and without trying to be one-eyed, not helped by inconsistent and frequent interruptions by the whistle-blower. Then came the defining moment of the match, which sadly was not a brilliant piece of skill or a magical piece of play. Near the end of the half Donny were on the attack in our 22, we gained possession but an attempt at a quick counter attack resulting in Donny regaining possession (possibly also knocked-on) and our scramble defence resulted in a tip-tackle from Phil Neilson. Red card and the penalty scored, so 10 – 13 and 14 men against 15 (though Carnegie had scored two tries to Donny’s one).

The half seemed to go on forever, though, the Almo watch timed it at 53 minutes. Before the whistle went for the final time in the half (no doubt needing replacement as it was wearing out fast) Leonard made a dangerous break only for his flick pass to go into touch just sort of the try line and Donny tried a 60 metre goal kick which was about 10 metres too short.

Life is too short for me to go into all the players’ comings and goings but at half time Tideswell and Bainbridge came on for Hooper and Walker and it looked as though our resources were now at their limit. Carnegie upped the pace at the start of the second half but the outnumbered attack struggled to find an overlap and then suddenly there was Lee Imiolek walking through the Donny posts with time to celebrate before grounding. Game on? Well no, not really. 17 – 13 proved to be high point, the 14 players could not keep up the effort. Subsequently Donny had a three man overlap to score on the left and a Carnegie poor lineout throw gave them a run-in near the posts. We scored a couple of penalties (Leonard showing a steady nerve and respectable range) but the final play saw Carnegie drop the ball over or near the line to give Donny victory 32 – 23 and no consolation losing bonus point for us.

Inconsistent and frequent whistle-blowing unfortunately continued as a theme from the first half. In contrast, credit to Donny, who took their opportunities as they arose. Not sure what we can learn from this match, but I would like to close on some personal comments on the match-day experience for the paying punter; more a general rant than a criticism of Headingley. The referee’s decisions played a huge part in this match and they were not clearly signalled to the crowd by the referee, with no voice announcement or big-screen explanation either. A new-comer to rugby would have been completely bewildered and probably not come back. Contrast this with rugby watched on the TV and there is a referee cam, you can hear the voices of the refereeing team, and it is so much easier to understand what is going on. I know that it is not practical to have a Sky or BT panel of experts on hand, but surely there could be one person, wired to the referee who could pass on announcements at least saying what the offence was and by who?