Newton's final points seal a fine win

The first score came after 10 minutes when young winger Jack Crompton pounced on a loose ball to race 40 yards for the line for an unconverted try. Shortly afterwards frayed tempers led to the sin-binning of Fleetwood’s Jake Watts along with the Preston no.7. this was to be the pattern of the afternoon with a string of penalties and breakdowns in play. Mike Jackson missed a penalty but soon made amends with a successful goal following good work from forwards Tomlinson and Buzza. Preston applied pressure without any real direction and good defence from centres Coultas and Newton denied the visitors any territorial advantage. Fleet always looked dangerous with the ball going forward, half-backs Doherty and Bamber combining well. From a scrum inside the visitors 22 the 2 aforementioned players combined before feeding Jackson who crashed over for a try, again unconverted.
5 minutes before half-time Jackson struck again with a penalty to give a half-time score of 16-0. Preston had rarely ventured into the Fleetwood half during this period due to excellent defence. Scott Astin was prominent in loose play as was hooker Henry Turner. Mark Evans suffered an unfortunate injury early on with Steve Buzza moving to prop. Andy Holme and young Jamie Beecher combined well in the second row with Mike Wilson returning to action at no.8.
Fleetwood continued in the ascendancy in the second half and Scott Richardson landed a penalty to take it to 19-0. Soon after scrum-half Craig Doherty made a break from the base of the scrum and used his supporting runners to good effect as he scampered through several gaps to score an excellent individual try. 10 minutes later a similar field position allowed Doherty to feed Bamber who in turn drew his defender to release Scott Richardson to finish in the corner. Zak Coultas stepped up to take the conversion and made no mistake taking the score to 31-0. Fleetwood continued to dominate possession but did not always take the right options and at times the game deteriorated into a war of attrition between the 2 sets of forwards ,keen to establish their superiority. Danny Tomlinson had a particularly good game in the loose being a constant thorn in the side of his opponents whilst also stealing good line-out ball. A fine flowing move was finished by young Crompton who grabbed his second try,uncoverted. The final flourish came when fly-half Paul Bamber pounced on an interception for a 50 metre dash for the line which skipper Newton duly converted-keen to get his name on the score-sheet after a recent drought. Fleet were able to make changes in the second half with the introduction of Danny Maher, Jim Haigh and Mike Dewhirst. Final score 43-0.

Report by Ian Cameron