Sedgley Park v Birmingham - Report

This is my report as it appeared in The Rugby Paper on Sunday 2 October 2011. Having a word limit of 220 to report on a game that had 13 tries in it was difficult, but I think the report gives a succinct enough impression of events. Unfortunately, the headline in the paper the next day that went with the report was 'Eight try Tigers maul abysmal Bees'. It didn't reflect the Birmingham performance at all, but hopefully the report gave a fair enough account.

Sedgley Park 55 Birmingham Bees 34

National League One

Saturday 1 October 2011

Sedgley exorcised the demons from last weekend with eight tries in the late summer sun, during a game that went from end to end.

Having lost the first points to a Dan Hawkes penalty goal, Sedgley took the first half by the scruff of the neck with scores from Simon Parrott, Richard Oxley, Jamie Harrison, and Richard Wainwright.

Birmingham replied with two of their own, from John Lowden and Jack Preece, to keep the pressure on the home side. 

Pick of the first half tries was Sedgleys’s Jamie Harrison, who collected the ball from kick-off, and with the Birmingham winger Jack Pons seemingly unaware of any danger, the Sedgley dangerman put his foot on the gas, powering down the wing, before sidestepping the full back Lowden, and touching down between the posts, giving Greg Smith his first conversion. 

Birmingham though, were always capable of putting the Sedgley defence under pressure, with livewire scrum half Warwick Lahmert at the centre of all the Birmingham plays.

The visitors scored three more times in the second half, through Pons, Lahmert, and Hawkes, although the home side repeated their first half scoring feat, with tries from Harrison, Dom Kohler, Michael Dutton, and Scott Wright.

Birmingham weren’t helped with the sin-binning of Tom Quarrie during the second half, for not moving away from the tackle, but the damage was already done, Sedgley having made enough headway for this bonus point win.

Scorers:

Sedgley Park

Tries: Parrott 11, Oxley 22, Harrison 24 54, Wainwright 33, Kohler 66, Dutton 70, Wright 74

Conversions: Smith 24 33 54 66 70 74

Penalty Goals: Smith 52

Birmingham & Solihull

Tries: Lowden 13, Preece 30, Pons 44, Lahmert 59, Hawkes 80

Conversions: Hawkes 44 59 80

Penalty Goals: Hawkes 4

Half-time: 24-13

Star Man: Louis McGowan

Attendance: 217

Teams:

Sedgley Park: Smith, Dutton, Wainwright, Riley, Harrison, Kohler, S Parrott, Birchall, Oxley, Flynn, Venter, McGowan, Lewis, Dew (Capt), Crous

Replacements: Black, Wright, Woolley, Urmston, Hurst

Birmingham & Solihull: Lowden, Clarke, White, Evans, Pons, Hawkes, Lahmert, Long, Preece (Capt), Darkintas, Quarrie, Todd, Brightwell, Reeves, Earnshaw

Replacements: McMillan, Tua, Farmer, Sadler, Webster

The game as seen by Sedgley Park website.

The game as reported by the Birmingham Post.