Fylde RFC 79 Blaydon 31: Tries galore at the Woodlands

Fylde won the reverse fixture between the two sides back in October, winning 40-20, but had hoped for a far wider margin on Saturday.

They made two changes to the starting line-up from their game of two halves against Bournville last week.

David Fairbrother returned at number eight, while Matt Ashcroft started at tight-head prop.

It didn’t take them long to get the ball rolling as only six minutes were on the clock when Charlie Partington collected Greg Smith’s pass before breaking the line and finding Tom Grimes, who touched down with Smith converting.

Moments later, Tom Carleton broke before offloading to Matt Sturgess, who opened his account for the day with Smith again converting.

Sturgess’ support play from scrum-half quickly saw him score again, Smith having no problems with the conversion.

He wasn’t on target next time, however, seeing his conversion attempt from the touchline sail wide after Ben Gregory’s break set up a try for Carleton.

However, Blaydon opened their account on 18 minutes when they sliced open the Fylde defence for Owen Chaplin to score, John Clarkson with the extras.

Nevertheless, as soon as they had managed to get themselves on the scoreboard, Blaydon conceded again as Sturgess collected Grimes’ chip to cross with Smith’s conversion making it 33-7 with 20 minutes gone.

Back came Blaydon with Ethan Clarke picking up fast ball from a ruck to dive over and score but Fylde again responded.

Fairbrother’s break up the middle ended with a pass going to ground, only for Carleton to collect and run 40 metres to touch down with Smith converting.

Blaydon had the final word of the first half as Clarke scored his second to make it 40-17 at the break.

Gregory got the second half started with the first of his three tries in the second period before Blaydon hit back when Iwan Stephens dived in at the corner.

Fylde, however, found it too easy to breach the Blaydon defence as Carleton broke before sending over Sturgess for his fourth try.

That was followed by two solo efforts from Henry Hadfield and a try for Adam Lanigan, though Stephens also crossed for the visitors.

Fylde captain Gregory quite clearly felt the scoreline wasn’t big enough and took matters into his own hands with two further scores to wrap up his second-half hat-trick.

With Carleton converting both, it meant 110 points had been scored over the 80 minutes.

Shipping 31 points prevented Fylde from putting in the perfect all-round performance, but they still picked up a bonus-point win without it looking like it could be anything else after 10 minutes.

Victory also meant they moved back up to third in the table, though the teams around them still have games in hand.

Fylde are back at home again next week, when they take on 10th-placed Sheffield Tigers.

Fylde: Turner, Hadfield, Carleton, Forster, Grimes, Smith, Sturgess, Kyle-Clay, Gregory, Ashcroft, Parkinson, Garrod, Partington, O’Ryan, Fairbrother. Replacements: Bowker, Higgins, Blake, Corrie, Lanigan.Blaydon: Bailey, Sommersall, Ashman, Clark, Appleton, Marshall, Clarkson, Brantingham, Chaplin, Dodds, Phillips, Hall-Lyon, Charlton, Cooper, Clarke. Replacements: Winter, Thompson, Wright, Richardson, Stephens.

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