Sam Pook' Barmy Army

This week, as regular Skipper Foden was injured, stand in Skipper Sam Pook did the match report.

Despite the bad weather, the second strings game went ahead away at West Park despite the other senior games being called off earlier in the day. This was a slight blessing as it allowed Fleetwood to travel with a full 18.

Sam's Report

The fleetwood boys travelled to West park this weekend with a full 18 players including a couple of lads recently playing for the 1st team. Fleetwood arrived at west park with what seemed to be a good collective of players with a strong back row and good centre partnership.
Fleetwood stood strong in the first ten minutes grinding out some excellent defensive work in their own half not allowing the west park lads to score. Fleetwood went up the park with a good kick from Josh Pearce and went for the line out (which surprisingly hit its target) fleetwood worked their way infield and won a penalty at the breakdown. The skipper on the day, Sam Pook decided to take the three points but unfortunately the kick went wide of the posts.
West park managed to install their game plan of effective kicks in behind the fleetwood line after no prevail through the forwards. This lead to a number of tries from west park with their kicker on form slipping all his conversions. The half couldn’t come soon enough, after a long half of chasing balls down the fleetwood team had tired legs but kept their chin up after good turnovers in the breakdown from the likes of Ben Langton, Ryan Hargreaves and surprisingly Darren Howe. George Orry was on good form running in aggressive and physical lines in the centres with his centre partner Josh Hall but the west park lads didn’t let them through.
The second half was a repeat of the end of the first with a lot of kicked balls in behind tiring the fleetwood lads out. This lead to a few tries from west park from good supporting lines and fast offloads causing carnage to the sometimes lazy fleetwood defensive line. Fleetwood also managed to cause two of the west park lads to receive yellow cards from infringements at the breakdown. It is also noted that nautical college lad Tom did actually score for fleetwood in the far corner but was for some reason deemed not a try by the referee who was somewhat behind the runs of play.

Skipper Foden's Notes

Early penalty Pearce miss in front of posts

Catch and drive West Park try 7 0

Counterattack West Park try under posts 14 0

Stripped midfield West Park try 21 0

HT 21 0

Fleetwood start strong for 2nd half. Tom O'Hare has try cruelly disallowed.

Forward pressure wp corner try 26 0

more forward pressure West Park corner try 31 0

Howie chickening out of tackle West Park try 38 0

Howe mouthing off yellow card

Tired legs another try run in 45 0 ft

Man of the Match

Man of the match this week goes to young Forward Ollie Fearn. Ollie has recently stepped up senior rugby and already looks like a good fit. Strong in the tackle and the breakdown, winning ball back a lad his size should have no right to be doing.

The Weekly Sam Pook Report

This week Sam stepped up to be skipper. As the result showed, Foden's captaincy does not to be under any threat. Decent game, more worried about naming and shaming his team mates.

"Can also give birksy some shit for breaking his finger, Ethan being hungover, greggy saying cricket is better than rugby during a scrum and Kieron pretending to hurt his ribs but then being out last night ?"

Next Week

Fleetwood host Aldwinians at Melbourne Avenue. 2.15 KO.

Squad: 15. Howe; 14. Birks; 13. Hall; 12. Orry; 11. O'Hare; 10. Pearce; 9. O'Driscoll; 1. O'Hara; 2. Pook; 3. Gregson; 4. Delaney; 5. Fearn; 6. Hargreaves; 7. Langton; 8. Buzza; 16. Newton; 17. Kirkbride; 18. Mangan.