Old Bedians Overcome at Home

Thankfully the rain held off enough to ensure that Clitheroe were able to host their second game of the season at home to Manchester side, Old Bedians.
The matchday sponsors were ITUS security and a healthy crowd turned up in expectation of a better performance than the previous week. Clitheroe have a long injury list but slowly players are returning and a changed strong squad was available.

Clitheroe started strongly in predictably heavy conditions and again the scrum...there were a lot of scrums...worked well with the front row of James Pate,Richard Edmondson and Ben Graves (pic) enabling the set piece to be in the ascendancy. The maroons were more disciplined in executing their game plan this week and locks Ross Chamberlain and veteran Darren Eagle went well in the conditions.

Ethan Wringe made his league debut at 9 and had an excellent game with intelligent distribution and he marshalled the forwards well. Clitheroe opened the scoring with Graves following a rolling maul and this was the pattern of the first half. Two more well worked forwards tries by Graves (again) and Chamberlain respectively ensured Clitheroe reached the break 15-0 up.

This was a forwards game,Luke Hayton, Peter Shorthouse and Struan Robertson were disrupting Old Bedians and doing the simple things well and probably the interval came a little too early for the hosts.

Old Bedians came back strongly in the second half, Graves was replaced by captain Will Dickenson and Robertson was replaced by debutant Niall Spence. Suddenly the visitors gained the upper hand in the set piece and enjoyed good territorial possession. Clitheroe were pinned back in their own 22 and as the visitors attacked, the maroons defended fiercely.
Though Bedes had possession, the defence was so tight and physical that the visitors didn't look like scoring. Inevitably penalties were conceded and Wringe received a yellow card but still the line was not breached.

In addition Clitheroe always looked dangerous with ball in hand with Matt Bleasdale and James Dickenson always elusive on the wing.Richard Slinger and Garry Pickup had strong physical games in the centre and Joseph Smith had an excellent game at full back. Replacements were used and Henry Bailey had a good return from injury slotting into the second row.

The hosts suffers another yellow card for Eagle but still Old Bedians hadn't scored despite their pressure. Eventually they kicked a penalty but Clitheroe, with 14 men, found some space with an exquisite kick from Marco Vaghetti which found James Dickenson on the wing who finished superbly. Vaghetti added the extras and his game was very solid in the conditions.

The visitors crossed for a consolation try five minutes from the end but Clitheroe ran out deserved winners 22-8 .

Old Bedians were a tough opposition but special mention also goes to debutante Spence, who came on in the back row and had an excellent debut and also to ultra veteran Watson who has lost none of his skills.

Wringe was man of the match and a good day was had at the club with special mention again to ITUS security for sponsoring and contributing to an excellent day for CRUFC.

Both 1s and 2's are away next week at Eagle and Thornton Clevelys respectively and all supporters and new players welcome.