Birt steps up to seal home points

Jun 5 2007 By The Huddersfield Daily Examiner

HUDDERSFIELD Underbank Rangers have won their first home game of the Conference National season.

After failed attempts at The Cross against Warrington Wizards and Featherstone Lions, they finally got off the mark with a hard-fought 22-20 triumph over Hemel Stags.

It was Bank's third win of the campaign and enabled them to move level on points with their visitors.

But player-coach Aaron Perrin's side had to dig deep to claim the victory, with little separating the sides from start to finish.

In a very tight contest, Underbank eventually drew first blood midway through the opening half when the lively John Birt and Richard Lofthouse combined to send Matt Hirst racing 40m to score.

But the Stags' response was almost immediate as Scott Roberts raced over for Barry Jon Swindells to add the first of his four goals.

Then the visitors hit the front for the first time after Matt Cannon crossed for a score following more good work from inspirational scrum half Aaron James.

At 12-4, Hemel looked to have taken a grip on the contest.

Fortunately, Rangers – and Perrin – had other ideas, and just before the break they reduced the deficit to four points when the player-coach crashed over after Carl Leach, Jamie Tarazi and Dave Edwards had all gone close.

And within a minute of the restart, Rangers regained the lead when the Stags let Birt's kick-off go dead and Perrin crossed for his second from the resulting drop-out.

However, it wasn't long before the visitors were back in front when James stepped through for a superb solo score.

But the celebrations were shortlived as the Hemel playmaker suffered a dislocated ankle in the act of scoring, and the tide again began to turn.

With the Stags having lost their main man, Rangers almost immediately struck back when Tarazi created the position for Birt to scoot over. It was now 20-18 to the home side.

Yet such was the nature of this gripping contest that it was no real surprise when Swindells slotted over a penalty to level the scores with 10 minutes remaining.

Good home defence then held the Stags at bay before Birt coolly landed a 40m penalty in the closing stages to seal a nail-biting win.