Match Reports
It can only get better (we hope)
Tuesday 27th December 2011
Beverley 20 Morley 3
Morley's hopes of ending the year with a morale boosting win in SSE National League Three North were wrecked by a poor performance as they went down to fellow strugglers Beverley.
The Maroons produced a patchy performance and added to their problems with some careless tactical kicking which took the pressure off the home side.
There was the usual early sparring with Simon Bradshaw going close with a long range penalty attempt.
Then Beverley centre Junior Tupai broke through non existent tackling on half way. Morley's second line of defence held off tackling him until it was too late and Tupai fed supporting full back Richard Bussy, who scored wide on the left.
Due to illness and injury Morley had Scott Evans at stand off, and his perfect across pitch kick to Bradshaw saw the winger hack it on, only for the bounce of the ball to beat him.
Good pressure from Morley eventually lead to an easy penalty goal for Bradshaw from almost in front of the posts, and at this stage there seemed plenty of grounds for optimism.
But careless play from the restart led to a Beverley scrum and Morley conceded a silly penalty which gave the home No.10 Phil Duboulay an easy chance to add three points.
Beverley gained heart from this and only a stream of penalties for which the home captain was spoken to prevented Beverley going further ahead and they had to settle for an 8-3 lead at half time.
Morley's habit of poor kicking from hand continued and Duboulay was quick to punish them as he used the wind well to kick downfield. Instead of relieving pressure, Morley's defencive kicks were poorly executed and first Bussy and then No.8 David Worrall launched danferous attacks down their left wing.
Morley continued to bring their backline into operation and full back Jack Moon launched some good counter attacks down the right.
Morley brought on Kenny Sewell at scrum half but were hard hit when Bradley Marshall was harshly yellow carded for a technical offence when Beverley had been spoken to on three previous occations and had escaped without a card.
From the penalty kick Beverley produced a well executed catch and drive with lock Gavin Gibson claiming the try, Duboulay converting it to make it 15-3.
Morley brought on their other two subs Ben Bell and Tom Clough, to replace Paul Gabriel and Stuart Costello. The latter had also been yellow carded after he succumbed to frustration at the perceived injustice at a previous ruck.
The final Beverley attack saw a missed tackle on the fringes of the scrum allowing Worrall and Anthony Riby-French to combine down the right to gain ground. Quick hands saw the ball moved smoothly to the left wing where Tupai went over for an unconverted try.
There was just enough time left for substitute Bell to get Morley's third yellow card for a tackle from the restart.