The early play was all Park, and after only four minutes scrum half Rory Brand sniped a try following pressure from the visiting pack.

Park continued to enjoy a slight edge, but Ionians put up a stern defence and the match developed into a midfield battle.


Harry Broadbent goes airborne

Although Hull did not look like breaching the Park line two long-range penalties from fly half Lee Millar in the 27th and 29th minutes saw Park reach the interval with a slender 7-6 lead.

Hull started the second half with obvious determination and gained their reward when right winger Dan Tai popped up on the left, evaded a poor tackle and ran round near to the posts to give Millar an easy conversion to put the home side ahead for the first time at 13-7.

Park were still giving as good as they got but began to leak penalties, not all of which looked obvious. Miller took advantage to slot one over on 56 minutes for 16-7.

Park looked the more likely to score in terms of tries, and eventually found a way through after a good scoring opportunity was stopped by a professional foul leading to a yellow card. Before Hull could fully regroup Mark Kohler ran in a super try, converted by Leonard for 16 -14 with six minutes remaining.

But they ran out of time to bag a winning score.

Rosslyn Park: Aspland-Robinson; Field, Morris, Leonard, Kohler; Sneddon; Brand; Wade, Vaughan-Edwards, Maguire; Boyle, Spivey; Frampton, Harries, Ellis.
Bench: Lilley, Nwakor, Broadbent, Crow, Watkins.

Scott Sneddon, Park’s Attack and Defence Coach, said:
“It was a really poor performance, we were simply not at the races after the first 5 minutes and were second best in everything we did. It's not an acceptable performance for anybody in a Rosslyn Park shirt and we'll be brutally honest this week in training to put things right against a strong Blaydon team”.

Charlie Addiman

Images: David Whittam

December 6, 2016