Percy Park stay in touch with league leaders Billingham and Northern with a deserved win against Gosforth 25 - 10. There are only 2 points separating the top three teams in Durham and Northumberland 1, with Park having home advantage in the all important games against the top 2, in the weeks ahead.
Park started the game with the same team that finished well against Stockton last week, with Phil Morse moving to full back and Ash Smith at fly half. The home side had the wind advantage in the first half and kept the visitors in their own half for long periods at a time. Although it was 10 minutes before the first score, Park had two great chances before that when Andy Dunn charged down a clearance kick from Gosforth only to unluckily knock on when trying to retrieve the ball on the line. The other try scoring opportunity came when Mark Foster-Moore was unable to hold on to a pass in open space down the left flank.
The first try came from turnover ball, when the larger Park pack stole the ball and spun it out to the back line with Foster-Moore making ground before off loading to skipper Greg Dixon on his shoulder. Greg was halted short of the Gosforth line but popped the ball to Giles Tipsword who was driven over the line by the forwards in support. Phil Morse kicked the conversion for Park to lead 7 0.
Gosforth had a chance to cut the lead with a penalty attempt but the kick into the wind wasnt easy and fly half Stuart Campbell missed wide. Soon after the visitors again defending in their own 22 opted to run a penalty but lost the ensuing ruck. The turn over ball was quickly recycled, and Mark Foster-Moore went over on 23 minutes to score an unconverted try to lengthen the lead to 12 0.
At this point, Park lost scrum half John Scott with a bad facial injury which required hospital treatment, and Ash Smith had to slot in at 9 with Morse moving back to fly half and Rich Berne coming off the bench to full back.
Gosforth had to defend for long periods of the first half, and it looked as though they would restrict the home side to a 12 point advantage at the break, but a Michael Langlands try on 40 minutes saw Park stretch the lead with the conversion to 19 0. With a scum on the Gosforth five metre line, number 8 Brett Sylph picked up and then released the ball in the tackle to blind side Langlands to score.
The green and whites would have hoped for the advantage of the weather conditions in the second half, but the wind dropped and with that came the rain which made handling condition very difficult for both sides. 3 minutes into the half Gosforth kicked a penalty, but this was soon cancelled out with a Morse penalty at the other end, then a further converted kick by the Park fly half to take the lead to 25 3.
The Percy Park defense kept Gosforth out for most of the game, with a particularly strong display by man of the Match Liam Casey. The visitors did have the last say however with a well worked try, with full back Ian Bruce coming into the line to breach the home defense to score under the posts with Campbell converting with only minutes to go.
Park Lions were also victorious against Gosforth II, winning 22 21, but the Marauders lost heavily 59 3 against a youthfull Ashington II, begging the question why the Northumberland Leagues have so many second teams in the third/fourth team leagues?