photo by Ian Lovell

Celtic Crusaders maintained their pursuit of a top-two finish in Co-operative National League One with a 42-6 thrashing of Sheffield Eagles who were unable to replicate their televisual heroics from last week.

The Crusaders, who host Leigh Centurions next Sunday in another live S4C encounter, now move level with Halifax at second place. They tail behind their Yorkshire rivals on points difference but travel to their ground in a fortnight’s time.

Coach John Dixon was happy at his players’ efforts but knows that there is still a lot of hard work to do in the next three weeks.

“Each of the games in the next three weeks will further determine play-off positions,” he said. “We’re right in the mix for second place right now and we need a good performance against Leigh next week to build on the good work from today.

“It was a strong performance from us today right across the board, in attack and defence. Over the past few weeks we’ve had our minds on 2009 rather than 2008. We focussed back into 2008 and on the footy today and that’s a credit to the players, it’s a difficult time for them right now, they had to refocus and that’s what they did.

“It’s was an important win for us today. Leading into half-time, I thought we’d done enough to put a stamp on the match. Sometimes after a good first half performance, half-time can hurt a team, but credit to our boys today, they came out and delivered a good second half performance as well.”

Crusaders took the lead with less than two minutes on the clock as Mark Lennon kicked a penalty, given for offside, from 30 metres out.

They extended it two minutes later following a second penalty. This time Crusaders chose to run the ball in. Josh Hannay fed Neil Budworth who in turn set up Jordan James to score. Lennon added the extras.

There could have easily been a second try straight away as Crusaders fought their way back upfield from kick-off. Budworth kicked a hopeful grubber but Lennon and Quinn in waiting were unable to dive onto it and score.

Sheffield struck back with a length of the field move with Johnny Woodcock evading his markers and selling a nice dummy to go over and then convert himself.

Crusaders extended their lead on 15 minutes. Tony Duggan sprinted 80 metres to create the chance and from the next tackle, Luke Dyer ran through. Lennon converted.

Damien Quinn was next over the line. After receiving the ball from Budworth, who was having an excellent game at dummy half, he twisted and turned leaving the Eagles defence for dead to place the ball under the posts. Lennon had no problems with the conversion.

Ben Flower, strong in attack as well as defence, replicated his team mate’s score on the half-hour with a fine individual try of his own which Lennon successfully converted.

There was almost another try straight away. Dyer, after receiving an accurate kick down the wing from Mark Dalle Cort, passed to Quinn but the ball was intercepted well by Welsh student international Rob Worrincy.

Even when the Eagles were on the attack, they couldn’t break through the Crusaders’ back-line, that was superbly marshalled by skipper Darren Mapp. Brendan Lindsay kicked what looked to be an accurate grubber with Dominic Brambani and James Ford lying in wait, but his opposite number Damien Quinn did well to intercept.

It took a long time for the defences to be broken in the second half as both sides played more or less a technically perfect game, completing sets and refusing to let either side through.

The deadlock was finally broken on the hour mark to liven up the crowd. The Josh Hannay and Luke Dyer combination at centre and wing created the try with Dyer slipping the ball back to Neil Budworth to score before Lennon converted.

While Budworth and Flower were two of the standouts in an excellent all-round team performance for the Crusaders, their star man was Darren Mapp, and he sealed a hard-working performance with a brace of tries in under four minutes.

He stormed through for a well deserved try five minutes after Budworth’s effort before going under the posts again straight from kick-off after excellent work from Geraint Davies. Lennon converted the second try to make the score 42-6.

“Two tries in a game doesn’t normally happen for me,” Mapp said. “But it was a great team effort today, we knew that we had to come out and win this game to stay in touch with the top two. We’ve trained hard all week, we knew what our jobs were and we went out and executed them well.”

There were further chances to score near to the end of the game. Budworth looked to have gone over for his second but was pulled back after receiving a forward pass.

The visitors also had a rare opportunity but Adam Hayes dropped the ball when attempting to ground.

Both sides are on television again next week with, as mentioned earlier, the Crusaders hosting Leigh with Sheffield facing another difficult trip on Thursday when they travel to Whitehaven.

Their coach Mark Aston knows how hard this trip will be.

“Whitehaven will be a tough challenge for us,” he said. “They’re another side who are playing well and to go to Cumbria is always difficult.

“We didn’t play well today. Credit to Crusaders, they were a little too hot for us. We came down to Wales hoping to get something out of the game and that’s what we did, we got a lesson in how to play rugby league.”

CELTIC CRUSADERS
1. Tony Duggan               
2. Luke Dyer                    
3. Josh Hannay                 
4. Mark Dalle Cort                       
5. Anthony Blackwood   
6. Damien Quinn  
7. Mark Lennon   
8. Jordan James                
9. Neil Budworth 
10. Gareth Dean   
11. Chris Beasley 
12. Darren Mapp  
13. Geraint Davies           
Subs:
14. Ian Webster                
16. Ben Flower                
17. Philippe Gardent        
18. Terry Martin         
Tries: James (3), Dyer (15), Quinn (22), Flower (30), Budworth (60), Mapp (65, 68)
Goals: Lennon 7/8

SHEFFIELD EAGLES
1. Jonny Woodcock
2. Danny Mills
3. James Ford
4. Damien Reid
5. Rob Worrincy
6. Brendon Lindsay
7. Dominic Brambani
8. Jack Howieson
9. Grant Edwards
10. Mitch Stringer
11. Alex Szostak
12. Matt Whitaker
13. Adam Hayes
Subs:
14. Dane McDonald
15. Craig Brown
16. Paul Pickering
17. Tom Buckenham
Tries: Woodcock (9)
Goals: Woodcock 1/1

Attendance: 1,115
Men of the Match:
Crusaders – Mapp
Eagles - Worrincy

Penalties: 8-4
Scoring Sequence: 2-0, 8-0, 8-6, 14-6, 20-6, 26-6, 32-6, 36-6, 42-6
Half-time: 26-6
Referee: Thierry Alibert (France)
Gamestar: Darren Mapp with powerful runs, strong in defence and two excellent tries.
Gamebreaker: Crusaders’ excellent first half performance. The game was won by the interval and the Eagles never looked like they were going to make a comeback.

article by Ian Golden
3 August 2008