FYLDE RUGBY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION: ELITE DEVELOPMENT DAY SENIORTEAMSFIXTURES & RESULTS 2024-25 FOCUS ON FYLDE VANDALS PRESTON GRASSHOPPERS 3RD XV 10: 27
In all honesty, this was a bit of a weird one. What should have probably been a local derby match, this was anything but.
Let’s first rewind the clock a little bit to say that the last time Fylde and Preston had third teams in the same league together, which was back in 2022-23. Fylde have since unceremoniously dropped to only having three teams, whereas our neighbours a Preston were still putting out five teams on a weekly basis up to recently. Now there are many reasons why I wanted to mention this, but primarily it was to highlight that although the Fylde 3rd team went 17 games unbeaten to win the league and cup double against a strong Hoppers outfit (many will claim that the in affectionately known Sarries side were galvanised by wider league sanctions which included points deductions in the same season), they were disbanded the following year by their own club which safe to say caused a bit of uproar throughout the ranks. So fast forwarding to the 2024-25 rugby season, with our double winning Saracens team now disbanded, we now had an abundance of players available to play for the Hawks, and of course for the Vandals - previously regarded as being the main social team in the club (for good reason too!). With the like of Jamie Griffin returning to the club to take up the mantel of captain, The Mighty Vandals took top spot for the season long duel with Blackburn 3rds (still surprised that they haven’t been included into our current league) and got promoted.
might say!). With the wind* to our backs, we started to make inroads into the opposition half. *It wasn’t just any wind, it was an M&S gold standard kind of wind. But in some kind of weird way, the pitch was absolutely sound footing wise. Special mention goes to Oliver Smith who stepped into tighthead for the game, who hadn’t propped since high school I think. Not only was he literally coming up head-to-head against an experienced prop in Olly Parkinson, he did amazingly well to make sure that the travelling team not only won all of their own scrums, but never got penalised throughout (which could have been debated, and largely was through the vociferous Hoppers front row). In short, with the strong wind to their backs, the away side dominated the first half exchanges. Classy centre and all-round nice guy, Connor Wood powered over for the first try of the contest, which was duly converted by sharpshooter Stephan ‘Shooter McGavin’ Kuhn. 0-7. The away teams lead was extended by who I’m guessing was Jon Green, to put a further 5-points between the sides. Only to go and get sinbinned a short time later. True to form, we had another man in the bin a short time later.
The shorter way of condensing all that spiel is to say that there were 2 leagues between our sides last season, and following contrasting relegation and promotion journeys by both sides, they were now placed on a level footing. Anyways, as I must be in the double digits of pints right now, I need to really start to get back on track and tell whoever reads this tripe how the game actually went. If my intentions have gone to plan, then people will understand that both clubs have had their recent wobbles but are still fighting on essentially. In the midst of the warmup, the Fylde squad lost James Shephard in the second row, due to agitating a recent rib injury in the warm- up. This allowed travelling reserve (god that sounds patronising) Rob Webster, who is honestly more versatile than a Swiss army knife, to come into the squad, with Cameron McDonald taking a starting berth. The home side won the coin toss, and drawing massively concocted conclusions here, but being inspired by the amazing work of the Foreball picks by Luke Donald, captain of the European Ryder Cup team, in the previous week, chose to go all out and pick to receive kick-off and play in to the wind for the first half. Fair enough.
*INSERT HALF TIME WHISTLE AND SUBSEQUENT RESTART HERE*
Things were going from ‘grand’ to ‘not so grand’ quite quickly. Hoppers capitalised in a brief spell which saw both teams exchange tries (bit of a spoiler perhaps).
With Tom Hodgkins running amok in the midfield and now setting up tries for fun, Connor Wood crashed over for yet another try.
But in any case, after another try scored out near the right-hand corner flag, the home side squeezed in for another score, to make it 10-17, the game was still in the balance.
After not showing the pressure of carrying the flag of being the sponsored player of the week, Stephan Kuhn, powered over to again extend the tight margin for the away team. 30
“PEEeeeep”
The match was underway (after that overly long preamble you
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