St Helens vs. CW Crusaders.
Code:
St Helens CW Crusaders
1 Paul Wellens 1 Nick Borcich
2 Darren Albert 2 Neil Pickup
3 Jamie Lyon 3 Tharmi Loganathan
4 Willie Talau 4 Jamee Gray
5 Ade Gardner 5 Andrew Cameron
6 Jason Hooper 6 Sean Fuller
7 Sean Long 7 Alex Crampton
8 Nick Fozzard 8 Sean Bennett
9 Keiron Cunningham 9 Sriram Gurunathan
10 Paul Anderson 10 Rich Langley
11 Lee Gilmour 11 Rob Malone
12 Vinnie Anderson 12 Thamba Mamesh
13 Paul Sculthorpe (C) 13 Dale Brumby (C)
++Interchange
14 Mike Bennett 14 Nath Patrick
15 Mark Edmonson 15 Håkon Mørk
16 Micky Higham 16 Alex Blackman
17 James Roby 17 David Kennett
After finally getting off the M62, the Crusaders arrived at a tiny, 115 year-old stadium with bits falling off it to face the biggest challenge, yet - facing the runaway league leaders, containing the most feared threequarters in the league and all 6 starting forwards laden with international caps, unbeaten at home, in a chlosterphobic atmosphere packed with 15,000 red vee wearing fans. But perhaps the wait on the motorway had given the Crusaders an opportunity to finetune their masterplan.
It certainly seemed that way when the Manx side struck early on, big Rich Langley bulldozing his way between Cunningham and Hooper and crashing over Wellens and the tryline to give the Crusaders the lead. Gray's ultra-reliable boot made that lead 6 and then 8 after 15 minutes with a penalty. His kicking has led to reports that the Rugby Union are chasing his signature to become the new Johnny Wilkinson. The Crusaders continued to boss the first half and could have had a huge lead at the break, but just after the half hour the video ref, obviously a relation to Asad Rauf, denied the Crusaders twice in quick succession - first when Malone powered his way over and then a neat ball inside from Gurunathan put Mamesh over. Malone made sure it mattered not in the dying minutes of the half, when he made sure he put the ball down after Fuller's cut out pass and Borcich's offload engineered him some space. Gray made his record 3 from 3 and The Crusaders went into half time 14-0 up. The key to their lead being the defence, captain Brumby in particular, keeping Sean Long quiet. As Paul Sculthorpe never passes outside to Lyon and Jason Hooper is too crap and slow to shift the ball wide, nullifying Long meant the threequarters were starved of the ball. It helped that Long was injured in a collision with a sheet of metal when the wind decided to speed up Knowsley Road's collapse.
Saints came out with more purpose in the second half, displayed when Paul Sculthorpe, chasing a third
man of steel award, crashed over to get the home side on the board, then converted himself. David Kennett was sin binned for fighting with less than half an hour left, and Sculthorpe and Vinnie Anderson duly took advantage of the advantage to close the gap to two points. The leaders were back in the game, but there was another twist. Supersub's Blackman and Patrick combined to put a third sub in Håkon Mørk through. Mørk neatly sidestepped past Wellens and the visitors had re-stretched their lead to more than a converted try. Below par St Helens managed one more try whan Jason Hooper went over, but Sculthorpe aside, posed no real problems and the Crusaders went back to the Isle Of Man with a well deserved win.
St Helens 16 CW Crusaders 20
St Helens
Tries -
Vinnie Anderson
Jason Hooper
Paul Sculthorpe
Goals -
Paul Sculthorpe 2 ( 3 )
CW Crusaders
Tries -
Rich Langley
Håkon Mørk
Rob Malone
Goals -
Jamee Gray 4 ( 4 )
Player of the Match Awards
3 points : Paul Sculthorpe
2 points : Håkon Mørk
1 point : Rob Malone
)
I'm sure that was supposed to be 131-0...)
