TWENTY - TWENTY VISION SEES VALE THROUGH

WINNINGTON PARK 20  VALE OF LUNE 20
North 2 West

The storms that have recently ranged far and wide left a trail od debris in their wake; fence panels lifted into the air like tissue paper, roof tiles cascading to the ground, gutter and down pipes being wrenched from their moorings and an alarming number of well established trees uprooted.
On the wooded slopes above the Vale of Lune's East Terrace one noble specimen, considerably older than the pitches it had stood on sentry duty over, crashed to the ground. Nothing could be done for it; the tree surgeon fainted at the sight of so much sap, so Reg got to work with the chain saw. In double quick time the branches were lopped off, and the formidable trunk sliced into logs ready to feed the voracious appetite of numerous wood burning stoves.

Clearing away the timber posed problems for the 'Grand Cru'. How to get it from the top of the slope to the bottom? A task that would be well within the compass of an elite officer training course at Sandhurst; but a bit of an initiative test for budding recruits to the 'Last of the Summer Wine'. Just rolling the logs down carried a tariff. Smashing into the advertising boards - 5 points; hitting the Commercial Managers shapely legs - 10 points; a direct hit on Reg's new car parked pitchside - World War 3.Luckily points were only scored in the first two categories!! and eventually the logs were manoeuvred down the slope without too many alarms.
Synchronised log rolling could well be another Olympic sport!!

There was plenty of eye ball rolling at Winnington Park, plus a certain amount of eyebrow twitching as the Vale scrambled to their first drawn league game since February 2004, 27-27, at home against West Park St Helens.
Perhaps it was a case of mistaken identity because in the programme the Vale were billed as Carlisle so ther was an excuse for the players appearing like strangers to each other for long periods, or might it have been the fact they had not played since January 13th. The exciting adventurous performance against Whitchurch was a distant memory, in particular during a pretty one sided opening thirty minutes.

Winnington Park racked with injuries, departure of experienced players and rumours of a merger with local rivals Northwich, made all the early running in their battle to move out of the relegation zone. A seventeenth minute try from Ben Barton, their only score of the half, was scant reward for all their efforts, but despite a massive penalty count against them, the Vale's defence was well organised.

Vale's first excursion into the home side's twenty two resulted in Andy Miller kicking a penalty goal with two minutes of proper time remaining. Shortly after a kick at goal was turned down in favour of a twenty metre line out; the gamble paid off when James Bryan touched down under the posts after a sublime interchange between Neil Bennetts and Ian Bird, Andy Miller added the conversion.

The second half began chaotically for the Vale, perhaps they had spent too long discussing the effectiveness of anti smoking patches or why the French always spell ICI backwards. Whatever had gone on in the huddle had not prepared the Vale for the outcome of a wayward kick, apossible forward pass in the build up for a Winnington Park try, which levelled the scores, wide on the left by Rob Burchell.

Within ten minutes the Vale had cleared their heads and retaken the lead. A powerful whirling forward drive ended with David Schuyler collecting his first senior try, James Knox a bloody nose and a Park plyer a yellow card. Streuth!
Now the Vale could control the game, or could they? As it turned out they struggled, in the sixty third and sixty ninth minutes Park's forwards forced the issue resulting in tries for Matthew Dodds and Sam Barton.

But as the Vale discovered in their second season in North 1 when they tried to lift themselves clear of relegation, Lady Luck has a nasty habit of turning the other way. Winnington Park appeared to be closing in on an important victory when they were dealt a double blow within sight of the winning post.
Two players suffered serious injuries - Ben Barton broke an arm and Andy Barnes suffered a broken foor in a bizarre simultaneous incident. All at the Vale wish Ben and Andy a swift recovery.

Against fourteen players the Vale went on the offensive. From a line out the forwards combined well with James Knox leading the charge; steel eyed Dave Halliwell elbowed his way over the goal line for the try that claimed a share of the points in the first minute of stoppage time.

ITV are currently screening archive episodes of 'Morse', pot of tea and a packet of digestives m'dear, but the beer swilling Endeavour and fruit juice drinking Lewis would have had their work cut out piecing together the clues that the game at Burrows Hill threw up. Still, the sandwiches were nice.

VALE OF LUNE: A.Miller, J.Bryan, A.Garnett, I.Bird, J.Curran, N.Bennetts (Capt), J.Bleasdale, P.Jackson, D.Schuyler, A.Cowey, J.Knox, D.Perry, L.Ford (Rep D.Halliwell 60), D.Lin, M.Fowler.

STOP PRESS- Alex Cowey is confirmed as one of the try scorers against Whitchurch. This was the young prop's first senior try, time for the fan club to break open the champagne.