A quick check of the club website shows that you would have to go back to 17th October 2009 to find the last time the Beagles suffered a hammering like this. The fundamental reason for this is the massive improvement of the side over the past 2 to 3 seasons. Sometimes things just don’t go your way and this was very much one of those days but we will regroup and make sure it doesn’t happen again!
Unfortunately our talismanic leader Roger Hooley was unable to travel to Macc due to family commitments. Roger’s organisation and management skills were clearly sorely missed both on and off the pitch, highlighted by the fact that we arrived at Macc having forgotten to bring water bottles or a physio bag. A sign of things to come perhaps.. Luckily somebody remembered the kit and Rob Wellock does not believe in cleaning out rubbish from his car so we managed to take the field fully kitted out and adequately hydrated thanks to Wellock’s small army of Coke and Sprite bottles!
Onto the game.. A frantic start and poor tackling led to 3 quick for tries for Macc and we soon found ourselves 19 nil down. Also during this period, we were unfortunate to lose Dan Eccles to injury after approximately 27 seconds.
The latter part of the 1st half saw the Beagles start to control the pace of the game and dominate possession with James Elsender securing good ball at the front of the lineout and Andy Morton distributing well at fly half. Eventually the breakthrough came when Mike Pearson put in a try saving tackle and then picked himself up off the ground in a split second and kicked the loose ball the length of the pitch with great support from Mike Barlow and pressured the Macc defenders into knocking on near their own line. The resultant period of pressure eventually yielded a lineout 5 metres from the Macc line which was taken by Elsender, worked back to John Wilson and driven over in a well executed planned move from the pack. 19 – 5. As the pressure started to tell on the Macc forwards, they had a man sent to the bin for persistent offending. A few minutes later, Barlow hit space well down the left wing and passed the ball out of contact to Tom Stock who drove infield from where the ball was recycled and moved through a number of sets of hands before hitting the flying Pearson who went over in the corner. Barlow then added the extras with an impressive touchline conversion bringing the half time score to 19-12 and we were very much back in it.
What happened next is not worth analysing in too much detail. Essentially, we failed to hold onto the ball for consistent periods of play without knock ons, wayward kicks or wild passes, gifting countless opportunities to the Macc backs who had pace to burn. Added to this, a sin binning for Alex Hooley and a bang on the head suffered by Mike Pearson in the 1st half left him complaining of blurred vision and dizziness, leaving him walking around the field for the remainder of the game thinking he was somewhere on the planet Zoron. Macc capitalised upon this.
There were some good performances to report. Andy Morton did well with the limited amount of ball he received, Wellock never gave up and ran well all day, Elsender was excellent in the lineout, Josh Cammiss battled hard and Mike Kaciubskyj showed some flashes of brilliance on his return from injury.

This was thankfully not a league game so our points difference has not taken a fierce battering as well as our pride. The Macc side played well on the day and are certainly not a bad side but are very beatable as we proved earlier in the season with a comfortable 35 – 17 victory. We can now fully concentrate on the league and have 10 games left this season starting with those delightful chaps from Lymm who are the visitors to Headlands Road on Saturday for the Beagles first home match for over a month! This game is then followed by our 3rd meeting of the season with Macc where we will be targeting a very different outcome indeed! Reasons to be positive include the expected return of Captain Ian Kennedy from injury and a cameo from Tim Oakes who has declared himself available for the next two matches. Onwards and upwards!
TES