Third time lucky
Pembroke simply can’t find a way past worthy promotion candidates Worcester.
Rugby Third Division
Pembroke....................11
Worcester...................23
With promotion awaiting the winner, this was bound to be a cup final kind of encounter and it never showed any indication of disappointing. Having agonisingly missed out on securing a second-place berth on points difference for the last two seasons running, Worcester made it third time lucky with a doggedly pugnacious 23-11 victory over their comparatively unimpressive rivals Pembroke.
The home side’s players that fell about and slumped to their knees at the final whistle were clearly dejected by the implication of their loss, but the writing had been on the wall for some time, with Worcester maintaining their early dominance throughout. Indeed Worcester had stormed into a 10-0 lead after 21 minutes, making the most of an abrasive start to the game.
It was Andrew Blasdale who registered the opening three points with an early longrange penalty, with the visitors galvanised by their imposing and quick-witted forwards play. Blasdale was at it again moments later, this time weaving through Pembroke’s porous back line to post his side’s first try of the game. Pembroke were by now starting to waver, and their anxious gazes as Blasdale’s conversion soared over them did not bode well for their promotion ambitions.
Yet there would be several more twists as the hosts tirelessly clawed their way back into contention. Two quick-fire penalties from Dan Hammond brought his side within four points of their opponents, and Pembroke only had to wait a minute longer before a run from Will Stebbing that probed Worcester’s rearguard resulted in his placement of the ball between the posts. Hammond, however, could not keep up his 100 per cent kicking record and Pembroke had earned only the narrowest of advantages.
Despite leading the eventual winners 11-10 at the break, the hosts had little to offer in the second half and did not, in fact, manage to add to their tenpoint tally. It was another Blasdale penalty from the 22 soon after half-time that swung the game in Worcester’s favour once again. Hermann Swart’s men continued to build the pressure on their hosts and limited them to just a handful of fleeting runs down the wing.
Passage of the ball across the back line from Worcester was irresistible, spearheaded by their two untouchable half backs. Although Pembroke were able to stubbornly shut-out Worcester for much of the second half, their own advances into opposing territory were frankly few and far between. A line-out on 51 minutes bundled in by hooker George Boss transcended into a ruck on the try-line deemed to have gone in Worcester’s favour by the referee as the visitors strengthened their promotion case.
Blasdale shaped a finelyexecuted conversion over the bar to hoist his team nine points clear of Pembroke and even closer to the high sphere of the division above. The half hummed along with few more noteworthy incidents, aside from Blasdale notching his 13th point of the match with a penalty from long range.
In exasperate fashion, Pembroke finally exerted some considerable late pressure to try and reduce the twelve-point deficit but Worcester were resolute and no-one, it seemed, was going to snatch their so long sought-after promotion from them for a third season in a row
17th Nov 2005