The REAL Match report vs Burley...

Here's my attempt at a more accurate version of events:

Burley vs Sheffield Medics 17th Oct 2009

The medics travelled to Leeds in bright sunshine and arrived at Burley RUFC to find the home side out early warming up. Captain Weeretunge made his players aware that this could be the biggest test yet as this side had lost only one game and beaten some of the strongest teams in the league.

Sheffield received the kick off playing down the sloped pitch. Burley started ferociously and put some early pressure on with some strong rucking from their forwards. The medics gave away a few early careless penalties which allowed Burley to kick for a lineout deep in the Medics 22. The obvious was inevitable as the burley pack caught and drove from the lineout. The leaner, fitter medics pack stopped the drive with some well organised defence and forced Burley to use their three quarter line. A strong run back inside from the Burley inside centre evaded several medics tackles and Burley were gifted a soft try after 10 minutes.

This was the wake-up call the medics needed and Sheffield then took the game back to Burley with some testing kicks raining down on the Burley full back who fielded well and was by far Burley’s best player of the first half. Sheffield were frustrated however as they tried to play quick expansive rugby, by some questionable penalty decisions which allowed Burley to maintain territory in the Medics half and keep the younger, more handsome lads at bay despite some good pressure in the lineout from Matty Clark and Zak Watson and some competitive scrums and one in which hooker Simon Webster managed to take against the-head!

Late in the half, Sheffield broke out with some of the fine support play which has been the trademark of the sweeping Medics attacks this season and found themselves on the Burley 5 metre line. However the Medics boys knocked on from the ruck and Burley were awarded the scrum. The Sheffield tight-5 exerted pressure on the Burley scrum again and forced a fumble from the back which wily scrum half James Attwood pounced on to score under the posts. Fly half ‘social’ Joe Clarke converted to put the visiting side 5-7 up at half time.

Despite a strong half-time team talk, medics found themselves under pressure at the beginning of the second half as Burley again started strongly. The medics conceded another questionable penalty as the darting defence were, not for the first-time called offside. Burley opted to kick and were unable to convert the pressure into points. This was not the end of the onslaught though and shortly after the restart Burley broke the Medics line and through some good support play scored putting Sheffield 10-5 behind.
The aging Burley side now began to tire as the medics began to up the pace and exert some pressure of their own. Despite their the determination however, the Sheffield lads were constantly frustrated by some interesting decisions from an obviously partially sighted referee who on 3 occasions had removed his yellow card from his pocket to penalise Burley high tackles, but was convinced not to use by the persuasive home side and a partisan crowd. Non-deterred Sheffield now began to build some better phases, keeping ball in hand. Some strong breaks from centre Liam Taylor and Fly half Joe Clarke at times terrorised the burley defence. Chris Yu looked dangerous on the right wing despite the ever increasing racist comments from the locals and the ‘clothesline’ tackles from the tiring Burley team. The forwards started to dominate in the tight and the loose – taking 2 more balls against the head and making the opposition lineout their own. Still though the penalties were given against the away team and Burley were gifted a kickable penalty to put them 13-7 ahead with 5 minutes to go. The building frustration at the 16 man Burley team produced some of the most determined rugby of the year from the medics team who despite the ticking of the clock never gave up on clinching the winning try. The ‘phantom’ knock-on which had been given many times by the match official during the game returned and the game ended 13-7 much to the disappointment and anger of a Sheffield team who felt they had played fairly and been hampered by the extra-man playing for Burley.

The result was a wake-up call for the Sheffield boys who until this point had been unbeaten at the top of the league. The initial complacency cost the medics who gave away some soft points which rallied both the Burley team and the noisy, boisterous crowd. The lesson was a tough one but the boys look to bounce back against Adwick next weekend.

JC
XXX

u gave them far too much credit! good read pops! very good! x

good effort Pops, I LIKE it very much !

v impressed pops. u should b journalist or summin. if id known u were so gud at writin wud hav got u 2 help me wif mtas!! x

Grow up fellas!

You were beaten by a better team on the day. I'm sure your players have plenty of skill and pace - but what you lacked was direction and determination to win the breakdown against a team more willing to put their bodies on the line and tackle hard.

Hard rugby isn't illegal rugby and a few high tackles don't make a dirty game.

The referee had a good game - if you don't infringe you won't get penalised - FACT!

If your forwards and backs don't toughen up you'll be eaten alive by the likes of Rotherham and Harrogate. If you thought Burley contested the breakdown and tackle area hard you'll have a very rude awakening!

And your accusations regarding the referee are offensive in the extreme - I assume they are the views of your club (rather than just the individual who wrote them) as this site represents your club and several members have commented. It would be interesting to see what the YRFU think of them.

I'll look out for your results on the 28th November (Rotherham) and 19th December (Harrogate) with interest. I would also suggest the Osset game might be a real test of physical commitment. But will the referee lose you these fixtures or will you need another excuse? Judging by what I saw on Saturday you certainly don't have the physicality to win them.

....wow

Wow indeed.

That is a called an honest assessment of a game of rugby union - rather than a 'the referee lost us the game - it's so unfair' tirade presented here.

It is easy to blame a referee, it is harder to search your soul and know you came up second best. You just took the easy option.

Quite scary when you consider what you profess to be and what the majority of your players will be in the future.

We understand we need to front up more in tackles and ruck/maul better, hence training is very focused on this at the moment - that is a fair comment.

The comments made by the person writing the match report are his opinions only, everyone is allowed to have an opinion and say what they think, hence your comments remain on the website. This is an open forum where we often have a lot of banter, it should be taken like that.

What you have said about us and our profession however is not acceptable and a tad harsh...how about reading your match report where you clearly isolate our players and skew the facts? bias as well. During the match we did not complain to the referee in any way, otherwise cards would have been shown.

Also condemning dangerous tackles is very questionable. the racist comments made by your fans/team players was also very unacceptable.

xxx

I feel I should respond to the above comments as I have written the match report.

As Matty has said the website is a great way for players to keep in touch, captains to inform of match meets and training and is great for some banter and fun. I apologise if it appears that my subjective view of the game has been interpreted as the viewpoint of the club as this was not my intention in any way! We felt that we had taken the result in a very sportsman-like manner and despite our frustration maintained our discipline and chased the game until the very end which was not how it was described in the Burley match report. Regarding the referee, I understand that our loss was our own making from earlier in the game, I just felt that the referee was inconsistent and having been promoted from Yorkshire 5 we thought that we could expect more consistency from the Referees.

I hope this has not generated any ill feeling between the clubs as my report was intended to be tongue-in-cheek and given from a similar viewpoint to that of Burley. I look forward to training hard and improving for our upcoming fixtures and indeed for our return fixture against Burley.

the banter just stepped up a notch!!

gimme a shout when the return leg is on - i want to come n watch! x