Ilkeston 83 Spalding 1st 0: Sam Cooke led Spalding onto the field knowing that it was going to be a tough day against the team fifth in Midlands One East and chasing the top teams.
Back in October in the home fixture Spalding ran Ilkeston close with a 16-22 result but on Saturday with Ilkeston winning the toss and choosing to play with the “slope” in the first half, the omens were not inspiring.
Within three minutes Ilkeston were already piling on the pressure and a relieving kick by Josh Broome found touch for an Ilkeston lineout. The ball was secured by the home side and quickly spread across the park by the backs, giving space for their right winger to run in the first try.
With the slope and a heavy pitch, Spalding were struggling to get out of their half and conceded a penalty, which Ilkeston elected to kick to the corner. The lineout ball was efficiently secured for a driving maul to be formed and a blindside break saw the scoreboard starting to tick up in Ilkeston’s favour.
With greater physical presence in the home forwards, Spalding’s scrum was under constant pressure but both Harry Brown, playing number eight, and scrum-half Will Shields showed up well, rescuing the situation on many occasions.
Brown was picking the ball up whilst retreating and getting over the gain line and Shields was doing what a good scrum half should do – either getting the difficult ball away to the fly-half or making a nuisance of himself on the opposition ball and putting in brave cover tackles.
However, the tide could not be held back by Spalding and with the tackle count stacking up spaces were being found by Ilkeston who ran in four tries during a 15-minute spell before half time for a lead of 43-0.
With the “slope” advantage, there was hope in the Spalding camp as they kicked off the second half that they could take the game to the home team – but Ilkeston had other ideas.
Their forwards drove down the middle of the pitch and their scrum-half broke down the blindside to go in under the posts.
Spalding’s bench started to be used and a welcome return to the first team was made by Kev Childs who took his place on the wing for the first time this season.
Also off the bench during the second period were Josh Caley and Gareth Osborne.
Spalding’s Mark Haighton was giving a lineout masterclass with his years of experience, winning just about every ball that captain Cooke threw in and was well
supported by Kieran Bailey.
With some second half possession, Spalding were able to play in Ilkeston’s half for the first time in the match and Childs had a good 50 metre run down the wing but defensive cover foiled a score.
Ilkeston were too good on the day and with dominant forwards and some excellent running by their backs, more tries followed.
Although under pressure, Spalding’s front row of Pete Waudby, Sam Cooke, and Jacob Hutson stood up well in the scrums and had only lost one of their put-ins.
Spalding’s stand-out player on the day was young scrum-half Will Shields who was in the thick of things throughout, as any good scrum-half should be.
Town: Waudby, Cooke, Hutson, Haighton, Bailey, read, Richardson, H Brown, Shields, Broome, S Williams, Douglas, Eggleton, Moore, Osborne, Caley, Childs.
