Cougars 23 Sheffield 16 : Sun Apr 22, 2012 4:02 pm  

What a great effort by all concerned today.

Brilliant result despite some dubious decisions by the ref (yet again).

All you ask for is consistency but how often do you see it?

Should be second now!

Re: Cougars 23 Sheffield 16 : Sun Apr 22, 2012 5:51 pm  

Fantastic game all round apart from The dirty Sheffield and as ever bad ref.

Re: Cougars 23 Sheffield 16 : Sun Apr 22, 2012 6:17 pm  

Check the 'match report' from the Eagles website:

The Sheffield Eagles slipped to a disappointing 23-16 defeat at the hands of the Keighley Cougars at a wet Cougar Park. It was an error-strewn, scrappy game played in atrocious conditions in West Yorkshire, leaving fans wondering when the 'summer rugby' season would start.

The Cougars opened the scoring through full-back Craig Moss. The grubber kick through from halfback Jy-Mel Coleman bounced around 10 metres out from the Eagles line, and there was a suspected knock-on from Keighley loose-forward Paul March, but the referee waved play on for Moss to touch down. Danny Lawton was un-successful with his first conversion attempt.

The visitors had some good field position following the try but errors close to the Keighley line cost them, and the hosts were quick to pounce. Sam Obst put prop forward Andy Shickell through the gap and Shickell returned the ball to Obst for him to register four points under the sticks. Lawton added the extras.

The teams then started to trade penalties as indiscipline began to plague the game, before Sheffield got themselves back into the game. It was a penalty that gave the Eagles the field position, and a short pass from hooker Andrew Henderson sent Misi Taulapapa crashing over for his seventh try of the season. Dominic Brambani pushed his conversion wide.

Simon Brown was introduced off the bench midway through the first half, and his impact was felt immediately as Sheffield gained an extra edge in attack. Brown kicked a majestic 40/20 10 minutes prior to the half-time hooter, but the Eagles failed to take advantage.

It was a momentary lapse though as the visitors drew level just before the half time break. Henderson passed the ball to Brambani who stepped around his marker to create an overlap, he then threw the ball wide to Taulapapa who gave Nev Morrison a walk-in. The winger narrowed the angle with his 11th try in 11 competitive games for the Eagles, allowing Brown to add the extras.

Sheffield kept the ball alive on the last play of the first half but Taulapapa was tackled just short and the teams retired to the changing rooms.

The weather worsened during the interval inducing an even scrappier second half. It was a half in which the Cougars drew first blood, Coleman racing 60 metres after intercepting Brambani's pass to touch down in the left-hand corner. Lawton missed the conversion.

Keighley then restored their 10 point advantage through Lawton, as he jumped highest to claim an Obst bomb and score the try in front of the jubilant home support. He converted his own try.

Sheffield winger Scott Turner thought he had got his side back in contention, but was denied by the touch judge who spotted his foot in touch before touching down on the left. It proved only to be a let off for Keighley though, as they knocked the ball on 40 metres from their own line. Brown launched a kick on the last tackle of the resulting set, which Taulapapa caught to double his tally for the afternoon. Brown added the extra two points and the Eagles were within four.

The four point advantage became a six point advantage for the hosts as Lawton converted a 40 metre penalty from straight in front of the posts. The referee and his assistants again denied the Eagles a chance of winning the game, after Brambani was adjudged to have been offside when he latched on to Brown's trademark banana kick. Keighley then went up the other end and dropped a goal through Obst to seal the three points and claim a victory by 23 points to 16.

Cougars: Moss, Barnett, Haythornthwaite, Lawton, Duffy, Coleman, Obst, Shickell, Feather, Korkidas, Pursglove, Shepherd, March. Replacements: Davey, Demitriou, Sheriffe, Cherryholme.

Eagles: Laulu-Togagae, Turner, Yere, Taulapapa, Morrison, McDonald, Brambani, Howieson, Henderson, Higgins, Szostak, Green, Hirst. Replacements: Brown, Hepworth, Knowles, Stringer.

Looks like we were lucky and that the weather worked in our favour - unlike the ref! He should have been wearing a black shirt today!

Tell that to the players! They gave their all and JD's tactics worked yet again. Looked like Jy-Mel picked-up a hamstring injury.

I didn't think that we played all that well in the first half and gifted the Eagles 10 points but we stuck to our task and gained the desired result.

3rd now. Brilliant.

Re: Cougars 23 Sheffield 16 : Sun Apr 22, 2012 6:53 pm  

To be quite honest the referee in charge of that game should never be allowed to referee a game again.

What does a player need to do to be sent off? Knock an official out with a left hook? Kill someone?

The spear tackle on Korki was as clear cut a straight red card as I have ever seen. They lifted him way beyond the horizontal and planted him on his head, he could have been killed or crippled. Yet the ref bottles it and puts the incident on report.

In my opinion a referee's primary role is to ensure the safety of the players by upholding the laws of the game. He fell well short on this incident.

Re: Cougars 23 Sheffield 16 : Sun Apr 22, 2012 7:06 pm  

I question this "report" system. Who does it benefit/penalise. It gives bottlesless refs a get out and invariably they take it. The Cougars got away with a penalty, wow. What it Korky had been out for weeks with an injury. Serious foul play needs dealing with by the ref in the middle. If an incident is missed, say off the ball etc then fair enough, but I think too many refs are taking the easy way out and passing it onto someone to make a decision in mid week.

Re: Cougars 23 Sheffield 16 : Sun Apr 22, 2012 7:35 pm  

They missed the fact that after kick to the corner at the end of the first half that resulted in the dropout, that their centre and winger were a good couple of metres offside... not convinced they gave Keighley 10 metres... they then had field position to score just before half time.

They got caught for several forward passes but they got away with several too... and the offsides were constant, not seen other teams as far offside for a while.

Great result though.

[Hillsborough Lad]

Re: Cougars 23 Sheffield 16 : Mon Apr 23, 2012 8:37 am  

The spear tackle was terrible and I agree he should have been sent off

[Hillsborough Lad]

Re: Cougars 23 Sheffield 16 : Mon Apr 23, 2012 8:38 am  

Dominance wrote:

I question this "report" system. Who does it benefit/penalise. It gives bottlesless refs a get out and invariably they take it. The Cougars got away with a penalty, wow. What it Korky had been out for weeks with an injury. Serious foul play needs dealing with by the ref in the middle. If an incident is missed, say off the ball etc then fair enough, but I think too many refs are taking the easy way out and passing it onto someone to make a decision in mid week.

Hear hear

Re: Cougars 23 Sheffield 16 : Mon Apr 23, 2012 9:18 am  

Keighley 23-16 Sheffield Attendance - 948
Swinton 24-26 Featherstone Attendance – 866
Dewsbury 16-8 Hunslet Attendance - 850
York 16-30 Batley Attendance – 691


Barrow 44-18 Rochdale Attendance – 1332
Workington 58-0 Crusaders Attendance – 776
London Skolars 20-20 Oldham Attendance - 492
Gateshead 22-40 Doncaster Attendance - 316
South Wales 0-34 Whitehaven Attendance - 231

We may have hoped for a bigger Crowd but we still had the largest in the Championship yesterday. A very high percentage being home fans also.

Looking at Championship 1, Barrow must still be doing something right.
It does make me wonder how much longer South Wales will be able to compete ?

Re: Cougars 23 Sheffield 16 : Mon Apr 23, 2012 10:09 am  

Scrappy, error strewn, but nevertheless very enjoyable. A bit of old fashioned "winter" rugby

Both sides had fairly equal periods of dominance but it came down to who wanted it most. We have now shown that we can win games that two seasons ago we would have lost, just by rolling up our sleeves and competing for everything.

The spear tackle looked shocking, and the "on report" system is just becoming a cop out, but I don't think it was a particularly bad tempered game.

It will be interesting to see how we fare in the return when the pitch should be drier.