West Norfolk 2nds return to winning ways!

West Norfolk 2nds 41 Norwich Crusaders 12

West Norfolk skippers Dick Watersquits and Davie Nimmo found themselves making frantic last minute calls on Saturday morning due to late call offs yet again! Chris Rudd was drafted into second row, Tom Fincham at scrum half, Paul Denton back row, Pete Davis front row, Billy Chilvers second row and Ralph and Ralphs’ mate as winger and bench!!

Despite the changes West Norfolk started the game positively. Straight away from the West kick off the forwards caught the hosts napping with aggressive work from forwards Julian Davis, Chris Rudd and Pete Davis taking the ball into contact with Denton, Hart and Father Fincham clearing the rucks enabling Tom Fincham to pop up to Rory who crashed over in the corner within the 1st minute. Calow missed the rather easy conversion 5-0.
Crusaders tried to reply with their forwards who although looked strong were quickly robbed of the ball by Wests’ stronger, more agile pack and special mention to Chris Rudd who worked tirelessly thro-out the game. Tom Fincham had time on his hands and as Crusaders were in disarray easily found Ross who sythed through the defence to score in the corner in the 4th minute! Calow unfortunately again missed the relatively easy conversion. With the game looking to be a walk over West appeared to sit back and take it easy for the next 20 minutes and although a few cracks appeared in the forwards first line of defence the back division of Dick Squits, Conor, Saunders and Ralph crushed any Crusaders attempts before launching their own attacks, finally resulting in a scrum 5 yards from the hosts line. With the scrum easily won Julian Davis picked at 8 and drove over the line making sure he was closer to the posts for Calow to claim his first conversion bringing the score to 17-0. West were working like a well oiled machine now and Crusaders could not contain the talented back line and a tasty little scissor move between Dick Watersquits and Ross resulted in another try under the posts. Calow managed to convert bringing the half time score to 24-0.

Manager, touch judge and team photographer Nimmo relayed a spectator’s point of view that West should really be another 20 points ahead and although it was proving to be a fine win more effort in both defending and attacking would surely result in a much higher scoreline.
These fine words apparently fell on glazed eyes, deaf ears and what appeared to be dribble when a gay looking winger pirouetted through the static West Norfolk defence to cruise in for a try. Luckily the kicker had taken some pointers from Calows’ first attempts and missed the conversion. 24-5.
Manager, touch judge and photographer Nimmo pulled captain Dick Watersquits to one side and orders were given to pull some fingers out or he would be replaced! This appeared to have the desired effect with West returning to their attacking ways and Julian Davis was denied 3 tries from the base of a 5 metre scrum with the referee stating he was unsighted. Team photographer Nimmo had actually caught 2 of the tries on camera but unfortunately the ref thought he was mad when he started making ‘boxes’ with his hands trying to signal ‘video ref’ and he was dismissed with a raised eyebrow from the ref!.
Not to be outdone Davis collected for the 4th time and careered over making sure this time he was at the refs’ feet. Calow managed to miss again due to the touchjudge being out of position apparently!! 29-05
Crusaders were starting to flag and West were rewarded when Ross collected a spilled ball from Crusaders on the half way line and danced round the defence to score in the corner. The conversion was outside Calows range 34-05. With only ten minutes remaining on the clock West took another breather and allowed Crusaders to have a last gasp attack which resulted in one that shall not be named (but has small feet) completely missing a easy tackle to let Crusaders in for a try under the posts which was converted. 34-12.
Not to be outdone and with a sudden resurgence West had a last gasp attack resulting in Captain Dick Watersquits diving over for a fine try. Calow converted bringing the final score to 41-12.

The next league game is against stronger opponents and West can only hope that the recent spate of call offs and unavailability’s has ended.

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