Fleet stars shine brightly

After a relatively short warm up the visitors were ready for a taste of some rugby action, the early exchanges were scrappy to say the least, Vale applying the majority of the pressure which resulted in a penalty kick being rewarded and converted, 3-0. For the first ten minutes Vale had the upper hand as the green and gold forwards failed to effectively hit the rucks and clear the ball, it was all a bit panicky. However, having shaken off travel weary legs and finally finding a foothold in the game Fleet began to penetrate, the first real test came courtesy of fullback Morley with a delightful catch, kick and chase. Play switched from one side of the pitch to the other as flanker Watson broke through tacklers supported by fly-half Lomax who drew his man before feeding hooker Heer to score a try, 5-3 to the good. This lifted Fleet and they came on the attack again with backs and forwards combining before a scrum 10 metres from the Vale line, and against the head Heer struck gold allowing No.8 Smith to pick up at the base and dart over, the burly Kerr converting to make it 12-3. The next play saw nifty play as the ball went through the forwards before centre Kerr hacked the ball forward for Lomax to chase and touchdown, extras added 19-3.This all came at a time when Vale were reduced to 14 men for a tackle in the air on flanker Phillips. Having exerted their dominance Fleet should have scored more, however penalties conceded was the order of the half as Vale reduced to deficit to just 10 points after converting 2 further penalties, 19-9 at half time.
Advice provided by manager Jefferson to use the width of the pitch and to increase the tempo Fleet certainly showed the crowd what they could do! Great hands from Phillips and Lomax resulted in the latter dancing down the blindside wing averting would be tacklers to score a try, 24-9. The next play from a penalty saw Vale strike the cross-bar, the bouncing ball was picked up by Lomax who ventured deep into the Vale half beating most of their team. In an attempt to clear the flood of Fleetwood pressure the ball went high into the air before winger Maddern caught it, fended off two tacklers and set off running before weaving his way to the line underneath the sticks, Kerr slotting the conversion, 31-9. By now the game was really opening up and Fleet kept pressing for more, Phillips who had moved to centre was running riot, he beat a number of defenders before allowing the other winger Orrie to round his man and score,36-9.Vale then joined the party and showed that they could also run will ball in hand scoring a try, 36-14. What happened next was pretty spectacular, returning young lock Holden skilfully caught the ball from the re-start, then bounced several Vale players to the ground, rumbled forward before deftly off-loading the ball to the supporting Heer who scored his second of the day to make it 41-14. Fleet continued to dominate the game with almost champagne rugby with forwards and backs combining well. The final move of the game saw the evergreen Barkworth snaffle the ball at the back of the scrum to dart over from possibly 5 metres!

Other than the number of penalties needlessly given away this was a confident display of rugby which showed how the talented Fleetwood should easily compete with most teams in this league. Although everyone who pulled on a green and gold shirt performed well a number of players stood out - Morley had a solid game at fullback, Lomax at times was sublime, Heer held his own on debut playing hooker, Holden showed his class around the pitch, the backrow of Smith, Watson and Phillips were at the heart of everything. Manager Jefferson and new skipper Foden agreed that on balance it was Phillips who narrowly should take the honour of man of the match.

Next week Fleet are looking to avenge their only home league defeat of last season by turning the tables when they host Eccles.

Report by Dan Jefferson