Utter dominance at the scrum sees Wigton home.

Wigton went into the game on the back of a very disappointing performance away at fellow strugglers Broughton Park which mired them further in the relegation battle. On Saturday second in the table Northwich made the long journey north to Cumbria to face a Wigton side in desperate need of a victory to get their “great escape” back on track. Of the 6 games in Wigton’s run in to the end of the season this game appeared the toughest on paper. And this was no dead rubber for the Cheshire side as they are still in the running for promotion via the play offs and travelled to Lowmoor Road expecting a victory.
It is a measure of the spirit in the squad however, that the team had got over their loss and trained very hard during the week, and were relishing the challenge of securing their 7th straight win at home. Wigton also welcomed back David Hanabury and Jordan Wood into the back line and Andrew Bell returned to the scrum after a lay off due to a hand injury, and all played their part in a tremendous victory.
Wigton preparations were disrupted when Stuart Creighton withdrew in the warm up due to a reoccurrence of a back injury; he was replaced at No8 by Captain Matthew Atkinson, whose place in the second row was taken by Mark Deans, who went on to give a superlative display of powerful physical play to which Northwich had little answer. The final place on the bench was taken by David Warwick returning to first team action and whose experience was in demand as the game neared it conclusion.
From the first whistle it was clear that Wigton were very much up for the fight and in the words of the visiting supporters “wanted it more”. Wigton caught the kick off and within the first minute second row Deans had carried the ball 3 times leaving Northwich defenders strewn across the pitch, this gave the home side momentum up front they would not relinquish all afternoon. The platform the impressive Wigton pack gave the team was utilised to full effect after 5 mins when after a period of 15 man attacking rugby an offload from Chris Pattinson under the close attention of 2 defenders put Gregg Smith, back at his usual full back, away for the first try. He was not able to add to his own try from the conversion.
Wigton continued to apply the pressure, running the visitors ragged with impressive offloading rugby and knocking them back in the tackle, showing aggression that had been sorely missed last week. On 10mins Smith added a penalty to give the home side an 8-0 lead. Credit to Northwich who did come back to win a penalty which they duly converted. Wigton were completely on top at this point, but then gave the visitors a foot hold in the game when prop Bell was sin binned for an incident with the Northwich scrum half in a ruck, those who know Bell were surprised at this as he is always uncompromising but does not cross the line. Those near to the incident reported that he was unlucky to see yellow and it was more a case of a player with a great deal of momentum not being able to stop when entering the tackle area. At the age of 43 things seem a long way down and perhaps Bell just couldn’t stop!
It is usual for teams to concede on average 7 points when down to 14 players, but the home side on current form are a difficult team to breakdown even with a player down and managed to keep the visitors out and when Bell returned to action the galvanising effect it had on the scrum proved the turning point in the game. It is difficult to describe in writing just how dominant Wigton were at the scrum, but everyone was cheered by the home crowd regardless of whose put in it was. The visiting scrum was going backwards at running pace and as such they could not release their dangerous backs and the home side got on top and stayed there for the entire game.
On 32 mins after another passage of fine passing and support play, David Hanabury playing out of position at 13, crossed for try. He was thriving on the greater space available to him wider out and his running was a constant threat all afternoon. His space at fly half was taken by veteran Tane Manihera who was impressive all afternoon using his powerful boot and deft distribution to keep the Greens moving forwards. Smith added the extras to give the home side a 15-3 lead. Wigton continued to apply pressure and wings Jordan Wood and Tom Gardner came into the match more and more stretching the visiting defence with Wood’s pace and Gardner’s offloads a highlight. Wigton earned a further penalty from the boot of Smith meaning they went into half time 18-3 to the good.
The half time message was more of the same, which Wigton started the half doing. Credit though to Northwich who came back strongly and the only points Wigton scored was another penalty from Smith. It was the Green’s defence that was put to the test for the second half and they struggled to get out of their half for long periods. However the pack continued to do real damage at scrum time, with David Waning, Stephen Carruthers and Robert Marrs particularly to the fore. It was a tough area to referee and local official Dean Lithgow handled the situation very well, despite a number of suggestions from the visiting players, in particular their scrum half, and allowed the home side to continue to apply pressure.
The home side could not hold out for the full 40 and did concede a try late on, but were never in any real danger of losing the game. The tenacity of the Wigton defence was impressive with scrum half Fergus Ledingham and flankers John Story and Andrew Brown a thorn in the side of the Cheshire men all afternoon. The whole squad came on to play their part with Jay Henderson adding extra energy and prop Lindsay Walker joining in the scrum rout.
The final whistle was greeted by cheers from the crowd, many of who had travelled to Broughton Park last week, and relief from the home side. Their destiny is still firmly in their hands and travel to Wilmslow in 2 weeks time, knowing that victory will go a long way to securing their league status.