It was supposed to be the day for Huddersfield YMCA to celebrate another special moment in their history.
This was the day when Wirral was supposed to turn up at Laund Hill and be sent home packing, leaving their hosts to bask in the glory of virtually securing their National III North status with over a third of their first-ever campaign at this level still remaining.
At least that was supposed to be the plan.
In reality, that plan proved to be as far off the mark as the YM’s performance on the day.
Instead of a day of celebration, it became a day of utter frustration and misery as the men from Laund Hill served up their worst performance of the season to suffer a 24-8 home defeat to a side that, in all honesty, should have been there for the taking.
Wirral were nothing special. The fact they were a couple of places below their hosts meant a home win would have been the predicted outcome.
Unfortunately, nobody had read the script.
While Wirral kept to the basics from minute one to 80 – respecting possession, working as a strong defensive unit and maintaining their discipline – the YMCA did the complete opposite.
Everything about their game was disjointed, both collectively and individually, and the number of wrong options that kept being taken simply beggared belief.
Had the YMCA brought their ‘A’ game to the table, the plan of sending Wirral home empty-handed may just have materialised.
But at no stage in this game did it remotely look like being discovered.
As a result, the painful final outcome was inevitable.
Messy YMCA play handed first-half tries on a plate to Ali Baker and Craig Harvey – the second of which was scored while player-coach Mark Whitehead was in the sin-bin for being persistently offside – and James Annets landed both touchline conversions to make it 14-3 at the break.
Those three points had been scored by Gavin Stead with a 28th-minute penalty in what was probably YMCA’s only scoring chance during a dire opening 40.
And it was no different after the break as Dan Harvey added his side’s third converted try 15 minutes after the restart and Annets followed up with a penalty on the hour mark, with Jack Housley having just been yellow-carded for a stamp.
Chris Clarke did give the hosts some hope by stepping through from 10m following an Adam Ryder burst with 15 minutes remaining.
But the sight of Stead hitting a post with the conversion attempt summed it all up.
This just wasn’t the YMCA’s day.
Huddersfield YMCA: Stead; Bentley, Ryder, Van Rooyen, Bulloch; Wood, Wilson; Moore, Hill, Dyke, Housley, Bell, Whitehead, Hodge, Lumb. Subs: Wrafter, Robertson, Clarke.
Wirral: Annets; Sheldon, D Harvey, Broadbent, Baker; C Harvey, Stead; Brown, Green, Hughes, R Harvey, Lewis, Parry, Burrows, Pearl. Subs: Warren, Hodson, Loon.
Referee: Ben Davis.
Huddersfield RUFC recorded a crucial 19-12 win over Luctonians in their National Two North clash at Lockwood Park on Saturday.
Full match report in Tuesday’s Examiner.
