Report by Patrick Moore
Huddersfield 13-21 Sedgley Park
Huddersfield RUFC remain fighting for their lives in the National North II after a 13-21 loss to Sedgley Park on Saturday. Three converted first half tries from the away side were too much for Gareth Lewis’ side to come back from, despite a late onslaught.
Sedgley were ahead within two minutes when a rolling maul led to a release for their outside-centre. Another maul led to another try just five minutes later when their blindside flanker cut in to the right, and the two tries were converted with no problem.
Dan Jeffrey was forced off with an injury and Elliot Hodgson returned to the field after a spell out with injury. Austen Thompson also returned to the team from the bench in the first half after his suspension.
The Field did come back in to the game when Chris Bell scored a penalty, but after neat play from right to left Sedgley found themselves in again to extend their lead.
Bell again scored a penalty before the half time whistle which put his side back in to the game.
A promising start to the second half left the Lockwood Park faithful encouraged, but the promotion chasers proved a tough team to break down. Liam Parfitt scored an impressive try with just ten minutes left after a neat succession of play down the left.
That try seemed to have been too much too late, and Huddersfield still remain without a win in 2016.
“The start we made affected the outcome of the today’s game. To concede soft early tries meant we were always playing catch up. To do this against one of the top sides in the league was always going to be a big ask” explained coach Lewis.
“Sedgley Park are a big physical side and they showed their strength early doors, but I do feel we showed them too much respect,
“Territorially we dominated the second half. We scored an excellent try through Liam Parfitt but could not turn pressure into points which was frustrating. I thought Ben Hoyle was outstanding yet again,
“Austen came back into the team today and showed why we missed him and Elliot Hodgson made a big impact too,
“If we play like we did today, and hopefully on some dryer tracks, we will make the Huddersfield faithful proud of what we do between now and the final game of the season,
“We have a special group of lads here and through these challenging experiences I’m convinced we will be a better side in the long run”.
Try scorer Parfitt also spoke after the match.
“It was a really tough game. I thought we came out really well in the second half and the boys put in a really good performance”
“But them first fifteen minutes killed us. We conceded two soft tries and were struggling from there”.
“With the break next week it could be an advantage. We’ll be at training next week and we’ll watch the game back where we’ll able to get a lot of good detail done.
“We’ll work on everything that needs to be done. We have a good run till the end of the season now. Everyone is still firing to go and we will keep going to the end.”
Next Saturday Huddersfield have no fixture, which means they will get a needed break before the final run in where they have to win games to stay up.
“We will train hard this week as the lads always do, but I’m sure they will benefit from a free weekend to recharge the batteries both physically and mentally.
“We are not going to deny the fact that it is very much against us. However, sometimes you’ve got to go through tough times to come out the other side.”
Starting XV-
15- Tom Hodson
14- Tom Kanauros
13- Tom Owen
12- Chris Bell
11- Lewis Workman
10- Joel Hinchliffe
9- Dan Jeffrey
1- Alex Battye
2- Lewis Bradley
3- Adam Tamanis
4- Gavin Rhodes
5- Nick Rhodes
6- Liam Parfitt
7- Ben Hoyle
8- Adam Malthouse
Bench-
16- Tom Baxter
17- Elliot Hodgson
18- Elliot Fletcher
19- Henry Walker
20- Austen Thompson
Substitutions:
12’ Elliot Hodgson for Dan Jeffrey
25’ Austen Thompson for Nick Rhodes
40’ Nick Rhodes for Gavin Rhodes
47’ Tom Baxter for Adam Tamanis
47’ Henry Walker for Lewis Bradley
67’ Elliot Fletcher for Lewis Workman
73’ Lewis Bradley for Liam Parfitt
