By simonh
September 5 2005

There’s silverware and there’s silverware. There’s big, fat, shiny cups and there’s the other stuff – plates, saucers, shields, that kind of thing. Having safely stowed the biggest, fattest, shiniest cup in English rugby in the trophy cabinet last Saturday...

...and with all eyes on Tuesday’s crucial league clash with Quins, Friday night’s outing in the second leg of the semi-final of the European Shield was never going to be much more than a side show.

Tykes duly fielded a team that lacked most of our big names, but which still contained sufficient old heads – Rees, Stimpson, Hyde, Albanese, Rigney – to counterbalance youthful zest – Crane, Care, Cusack, Doherty, Paul.

With a makeshift second row and midfield partnership (Rigney and Paul; Stimpson and Rees, respectively) it was always going to be interesting.

Wuss arrived with a handy first-leg lead of nine points and within two minutes a Hayes penalty had put the visitors 3-0 up. Pressure by Tykes from the re-start took Rees close to the line, but he was done for not releasing. Wuss then began to find some rhythm and flow, and came close to Tykes line on a couple of occasions, repelled only by our usual tight defence.

On 12 minutes Stimpson launched a booming punt from a penalty kick to put Tykes within a few metres of the visitors’ line. Following a couple of phases of play, McMullen attempted a quick, flat, miss-out pass but it was intercepted by Warriors’ winger Sampson who ran 90 metres to touch down – albeit only narrowly outstripping Doherty. The conversion was missed, making it 8-0 to Wuss.

Three minutes later a Stimpson penalty brought up the first points of the night for Tykes: 3-8.

On 20 minutes some decent Tykes pressure concluded with a penalty which Stimpson put into the corner – Stimpson’s kicking to touch was excellent all night – and following a couple of phases Tykes were given a 5 metre scrum from which Crane picked up, ran blind and fed Stimpson who scored in the corner, failing to convert.

Tykes 8 – Wuss 8.

The teams were looking reasonably matched at this stage. Our lineout was misfiring a bit, with Wuss able to steal or disrupt fairly regularly; theirs was sound and we rarely challenged on their throw in. Set scrum was reasonably steady. The big difference was in broken play, with Wuss’s forwards doing some excellent inter-passing and offloading in the tackle and combining well with the back line, which looked a fair bit sharper than ours.

This was exemplified on 33 minutes, when an ill-judged chip-over-the-top by Albanese plopped into a forest of red shirts; the ball was plucked from the air by a Wuss forward who rapidly fed it wide, exploiting a large overlap which resulted in Wuss fullback O’Leary scoring. Conversion missed:

Tykes 8 – Wuss 13.

Six minutes later another bad kick by Albanese. This time deep into Wuss’s 22, but down the throat of the fullback. A quick counter-attack led to no. 13 Roke scoring under the posts – duly converted.

Half-time: Tykes 8 – Wuss 20.

At this stage it looked as though things were running away badly from the Tykes. Certainly the aggregate score was mounting rather alarmingly in Wuss’s favour.

Six minutes into the restart and Tykes were pressurising nicely, recycling good quick ball for three or four phases. Twenty metres out and the ball came along the line. It looked as though nothing was on – the Wuss defence was strung out across the field with all angles covered. But a skilful pop-pass from Hyde to Rees opened up a tiny sliver of a gap and Rees was through to score. Conversion failed.

Tykes 13 – Wuss 20.

On 50 minutes Tykes were penalised at a scrum. The penalty was quickly taken, went through several Wuss hands before being taken over the line by Hayes, who duly converted.

Tykes 13 – Wuss 27.

I suspect that at this point Wuss relaxed a bit, because the complexion of the game changed a bit. Tykes began to enjoy more possession, with Doherty in particular coming into play much more and Tykes getting some decent control from the forwards, characterised by some nice bullocking runs by Cusack and Paul.

On 54 minutes Doherty was released into a bit of space on the right side and rocketed towards the corner, only to hesitate some 10 metres out. But once again he demonstrated that the word ‘quick’ does not do him justice.

Holt was binned at 62 minutes for some skullduggery – just when Leeds had looked like scoring a try from a rumbling maul. However, the absence of a man in the pack didn’t seem to do us a lot of harm. When Wuss put into a scrum on their 22, they got absolutely useless ball which we turned over, fed along the line to Doherty who touched down in the corner.

66 minutes, Tykes 18 – Wuss 27.

A few minutes later more Tykes pressure allowed Doherty some room and again he came within a nanometre of scoring. Leeds were firing at this stage, winning good ball but failing to find the holes. In particular Rees was guilty of squandering a screaming two-man overlap ten metres from the Wuss try line.

With five minutes to go the game, which had never been the most fluid of spectacles, lost its shape even more, with knock-ons and other errors occurring with regularity.

On 77 minutes Leeds were given a penalty 15 metres out on the right hand side. A nice set-play then followed. Rather than kick for touch, Stimpson turned infield and launched a massive bomb right across the field to the far touch line. The ball was gathered cleanly by Hyde, who fed Dunbar on his left, who touched down virtually unopposed. An unusual play that came off. Stimpson failed with the conversion.

Tykes 23 – Wuss 27.

With injury time approaching, Tykes were given a penalty which Stimpson put deep into the Wuss 22 with another huge punt. An excellent catch and drive at the lineout put Hyde over for the score, which Stimpson did convert this time.

Tykes 30 – Wuss 27.

At this point things were looking a tiny bit interesting. There were one or two plays left, and conceivably Tykes could get a converted try and thereby overhaul the 9 pt deficit they had at the start of the match.

Unfortunately all this speculation came to nothing when Wuss were given penalty 25 metres out directly in front of the posts. To chants of ‘boring, boring’ from the Leeds contingent of the (rather embarrassingly small) crowd of 1335, substitute Brown kicked the 3 pts.

So the match was drawn at 30-30 and Wuss proceed to the final.

On balance they deserved to go through. They showed greater wit and invention with the ball in hand. Here’s hoping that they secure this piece of silverware and stay up in the premiership. They are a great outfit and English rugby needs them in the top flight.

Leeds Tykes 30 – Worcester Warriors 30
(Worcester win 73-64 on aggregate)

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