Lancashire 57 Northumberland 19
Fylde RFC
Saturday 10 May 2014
Lancashire started the defence of their County Championship title in emphatic style, with nine tries at the Woodlands, including a hat-trick from captain Chris Johnson.
An injury to prop Ben Black in the warm-up led to a change to the starting line-up; Adam Lewis starting, with Ally Murray brought on to the bench.
An early Ali Blair try, one of three Northumberland scores which Lancashire head coach Mark Nelson conceded afterwards was gifted to the visitors, set the game underway in tricky weather conditions.
Incessant rain had greeted the teams to the field, and as Northumberland kicked off, they kept possession deep in Lancashire territory, scoring with the home side yet to wake up to any kind of threat.
Once Lancashire were able to find some sort of rhythm, their back line revved up the gears, and Matt Riley equalised after a final offload from Chris Briers.
Warren Spragg found a gap to score between the posts, allowing Johnson to kick his first points of the day, while the captain added his first try only two minutes later. Yet again, great passing near the left touchline found Johnson in space to go over in the corner.
Despite that quick-fire scoring sequence, Northumberland retained an edge, and scrum-half Tom Banks was able to take the Lancashire defence by surprise at a scrum to ghost through and score.
He added his second try only three minutes later, having powered through the defensive line from half-way, and after his conversion, Northumberland were 19-17 ahead.
But Lancashire were able to take an advantage at the break, as Johnson accepted a clever reverse pass from Ryan De La Harpe to outsmart the defence and dot down between the posts, allowing himself a simple conversion.
Paul Arnold took the start of the second half by storm, as he powered through from his own half to set up the move which eventually saw Sean Taylor pick up a loose ball on the right wing and score in the corner.
Warren Spragg almost scored his second of the game soon after, but was judged to have been held up by referee Wayne Falla.
Johnson earned the match ball with a try between the posts, which he converted for a 34-19 scoreline, before setting up Spragg for his second of the game.
Johnson was withdrawn for Steve Collins with 20 minutes of the game left. Collins made an instant impact, offloading to Chris Briers who scored.
With ten minutes to play, Oli Brennand rounded off the scoring with the last try of the game.
Nelson said afterwards: “We are very pleased with that, I said to the players before the game that it was very important to get off to a good start. The second half was an outstanding performance, and we used the rolling subs very well”
“There were two gifts of tries, bizarre tries from our set-piece, at the line-out and the scrum which kept them in the game at the end of the first half.
“I thought in the second half we were on top of our game, but they were a very competitive side.
“The weather didn’t dampen our ambition, and that was there for all to see in the second half.
“There were some really good passages of play, and we will take heart from that going in to what looks like being a crunch game over at Scarborough next Saturday.”
Teams –
Lancashire
Sean Taylor, Warren Spragg, Chris Briers, Matt Riley, Oli Brennand, Chris Johnson (Captain), Ryan De La Harpe; Dan Birchall, Mark Rylance, Adam Lewis, Louis McGowan, Gareth Gore, Gareth Rawlings, Evan Stewart, Matt Lamprey
Replacements (all used) – Simon Griffiths, Ally Murray, Ben Vernon, Paul Arnold, Tom Burtonwood, Phil Baines, Steve Collins
Northumberland
Nathan Bailey, Joe Beckett, Ali Blair, Tommy Banks, Ollie Walker, Rob Parker, Tom Banks; Sam White, Fran Entressengle, Mark Irving, Josh Pettet, Craig Hamilton, Keith Laughlin (Captain), Matt Charters, Jack Davidson
Replacements (all used) – Joe Anderson, Andrew Dunn, Callum McCullough, Nick Cairns, Peter Weightman, Ollie Foster, Ash Smith
Scorers –
Lancashire
Tries – Riley 11, Spragg 19 56, Johnson 21 35 48, Taylor 42, Briers 64, Brennand 70
Conversions - Johnson 19 35 48 56, Collins 64 70
Northumberland
Tries – Blair 4, Banks 30 33
Conversions – Banks 30 33