West Hartlepool shrug off injuries to beat Morley

The North One East promotion contenders arrived at Catcote Road having only lost once all season, to leaders Doncaster Pheonix, and looking to cement their position in the promotion play-off position.

West, always a tough proposition on their home ground, had other ideas and, having run the Yorkshiremen close on their own patch earlier in the season, knew they had the ability to come out on top in the reverse fixture.

This was a gutsy performance in every sense of the word as the home side had to defend for long periods, at times with some real backs-to-the-wall stuff.

Their scoring opportunities were few and far between but, crucially, they took them all whereas the visitors squandered several scoring chances with a combination of mistakes and solid defence.

First-half injuries to West playmaker Gav Painter and back-row man Liam Bailey forced both to watch from the sidelines and saw Greg Edwards and Joe Rafferty called into early action.

The loss of Painter to a broken nose brought Stu Waites up from full-back to fly-half but when he suffered a serious shoulder injury in the second half it left West reeling.

The last 20 minutes saw Aaron Myers deputise at centre with no recognised kickers anywhere in the XV.

Despite the reshuffle it was an heroic defensive effort in the closing stages as Morley mounted a series of attacks looking to overturn a 17-3 second-half deficit.

When West lost Aaron Myers to the sin-bin with 25 minutes to play Morley did score through elusive full-back Dante van der Merwe but a missed conversion kept the lead at more than a single score.

With plenty of time left and West’s makeshift line-up beginning to fatigue Morley caught a glimpse of a comeback but it wasn’t to be.

West had suffered in the scrum during the first half but somehow pushed Morely off two scrums deep in the 22 at crucial moments and pressured the visiting line-out into mistakes.

Stand-out defensive work from Anth Carr, diving in to force a knock-on when a try looked certain, and Ryan Painter, with a double tackle in the right corner, were key moments in an all-round team effort.

In the first half West had also absorbed pressure but proved clinical in attack.

Morley had the better of the early exchanges and missed an early penalty after a late tackle by Dan Boatman.

Against the run of play West got the first score on 23 minutes. A maul on half-way advanced well into the Morley half and sucked in defenders. Owen Bennett spotted a gap and peeled off on the blindside, drawing the last defender before passing to Ryan Painter who raced up the touchline to dive in at the right corner.

More maul success brought West’s second score on the half hour, this time rolling away from an initial defensive surge by the visitors for Boatman to emerge from the pile of bodies in the opposite corner as the try scorer. Mark Chester pulled three points back for Morley in the closing stages of the half but West went into half time happy with a 10-3 lead.

The crucial try came just four minutes into the second period with an offload from Eldon Myers setting up an attack in the left corner. West kept the ball alive well and eventually moved it back to the right where Joe Willis went over untouched by the corner flag. Waites found his range with a great touchline conversion for a 17-3 lead.

Chester had the opportunity to close the gap with another penalty almost straight from the re-start but skewed a relatively straight-forward kick wide. It signalled the start of the away resurgence and as West’s penalty count grew the inevitable yellow-card came for Myers as he tackled the scrum-half at the wrong side of a ruck on the goal-line.

That led to the van der Merwe try and ultimately the defensive effort that secured the victory.

While the win closes the gap between West and their rivals to just three points, the Yorkshire team do have the luxury of two games in hand.

West will be hoping the injuries to Painter and Waites prove less serious than initially thought as facing the upcoming games without either playmaker will be a significant blow.

Head coach Iain Dixon said: “The team spirit was tremendous. We had set back after setback with a serious mouth injury for Gavin Painter and a hip injury to Liam Bailey.

“Stu Waites took over at fly half from Gav but he dislocated his shoulder.

“Then we had Aaron Myers sin-binned and when he came back on he had to play in the centre with prop Jack Angus in the back row.

“Despite all of that every player worked so hard and our seven-man scrum even pushed their pack back when they were close to our line.

“We played some good heads-up rugby for our three tries, and the lads got their reward by beating a side which has only lost once before this season.”

West: Waites, Butcher, E Myers, Youll, G Painter, R Painter, Coates, Rollins, Angus, Boatman, Bennett, Bailey, A Myers, Miller. Reps: Rafferty, Carr, Edwards

Tries: R Painter, Boatman, Willis; Con: Waites; Sin-bin: Myers, Boatman

Morley: van der Merwe, Sim, Knowles, Frantzis, Bradshaw, Chester, Sewell, Benn, Ashford, Bell, Head, Brown, Watts, Flegg, Smyth. Subs: Dinsdale, Richmond, Glynn

Try: van der Merwe. Pen: Chester

Referee: Ryan Oliver (Warwickshire)