Rugby Union: New Brighton 27, Vale Of Lune 26

Sep 10 2007 by Ian Hargraves, Liverpool Daily Post

NEW BRIGHTON happily got off the mark in their first North Two West match of the season, following a fluctuating encounter that could hardly have been more erratic.

After taking an early 8-0 lead with a penalty goal from Stephen Dean and an unconverted try from colourful No 8 Kali Tuipulotu, their play became so confused that almost unbelievably they then conceded four tries in 12 minutes to trail 8-26 at half-time.

Fortunately, they did re-organise themselves during the interval and fought back steadily on the resumption to gradually close the scoring gap.

Thanks to three excellent tries of their own, they managed to take a one-point lead with a simple conversion some 10 minutes from time and hung on to it successfully, despite having the influential Tuipulotu sent to the sin bin in the closing minutes.

As can be seen, Tuipulotu exercised a good deal of influence on the game, despite playing very much in short, sharp bursts of action and he managed to score two of his side’s four tries.

The others came from prop John Brotherton and centre Chris Dale, whose partner Stephen Dean, added the match-winning final conversion.

Both Dean and Dale enjoyed quite good games in a rather erratic backs division, but it was scrum-half Mike Gallimore who attracted far more attention as, despite making a good many mistakes, he was always trying to find holes in the opening defence.

His key moment arrived fairly near the end, when New Brighton were under a good deal of pressure before he suddenly broke away from inside his own 22, gained a lot of ground and opened the way for Dale to score that last, vital try.

Overall, the New Brighton pack played quite well, with the powerful Ali Child looking an influential substitute and locks Danny Jones and Paul Campbell ensure a good deal of lineout possession. Their opponents producing few imaginative attacking movements.