Longton 10-22 Hull RUFC
October 13th 2007
EDF National Trophy Round One
Roughcote Ground, Stoke-on-Trent
It was not pretty, but Hull’s mastery of the rolling maul denied Potteries side Longton of the ball for long periods and made sure the Haworth Park side went into the second round of the EDF National Trophy with a 22-10 win.
Driven on by man-of-the-match Chris Murphy and shrugging off the loss of former Rotherham and Doncaster lock forward Dan Cook with back problems on eight minutes, Hull never really looked to be in any difficulty.
Director of Rugby Geoff Wappett said: “The pitch was slippery and the ball was slippery.
“We wanted to win and in circumstances like this you have to use your resources as best you can.
“Last week we used our resources to the best of our ability for 30 minutes.
“This time we did so for an hour and during that time I don’t think Longton were in our half for more than two minutes”.
“They never looked like scoring until we got sloppy in the last 20 minutes when they began to get some ball and played reasonably well.
“I am not disappointed with the way we played in the main but we did get ragged and started to give away silly penalties towards the end.
“I would have liked to have gone into next week’s league game without conceding a try and there was no reason why this should not have happened. But we are improving”, he concluded.
On an absolute quagmire of a pitch and after surviving an early penalty against them, and the loss of Cook, Hull took the lead in the 11th minute.
Chris Murphy surged up the middle, well supported by his pack and when the ball was moved out wide Alex Piercy raced in to touch down.
Carl Paterson converted and then he dropped a goal in the 27th minute to see his side in a 10-0 lead which they held until half-time.
The rolling maul worked again 2 minutes after the break when Darren Wigg emerged from the bottom of the pile and Paterson again tagged on the conversion.
On the hour the Hull juggernaut rolled forward yet again and this time it was Hull’s No 8 Jeff Peek who got the try with Paterson’s conversion attempt just drifting wide.
Despite being 22-0 down Longton refused to roll over and as Hull relaxed a little in the final 20 minutes they picked up two unconverted tries from full-back Anthony Wheat and substitute half-back John Needham.
The only blot on the copy-book came in injury time when Peek picked up a yellow card for handling in a ruck.
Hull’s team, that day was: A. Piercy, J. Wilson, C. Bailey-Gibbs, S. Newton, A. Wadforth, C. Paterson, M. White, J. Ward, J.Krebs, M. Webber, C. Murphy, D. Cook, D. Wigg, A. Smith and R. Mackay. Subs; J. Peek, M. David, T. Garnett and L. McKenzie.
HULL RUGBY UNION FOOTBALL CLUB 