Rugby Union: Caldy 16, Preston Grasshoppers 20

Oct 8 2007 by Ian Hargraves, Liverpool Daily Post

CALDY have arguably the most beautiful ground in the north west and one of the best organised and most ambitious memberships around, but it may still take them another year or two to exploit their full potential.

On Saturday they might well have beaten a very useful Grasshoppers side, who sit near the top of National Three North, but they missed several good chances and gradually lost control of a match they looked like dominating early on as they slipped to an eventual 20-16 defeat.

The visitors had the stronger pack, despite Caldy’s well known locks Richard Bradshaw and Paul White, and also tended to make better use of their half chances, with free running full back Oliver Viney showing tremendous imagination and enterprise that helped him to score what became the winning try.

Caldy’s distinguished full back Simon Mason had one of those days when he missed a number of difficult half chances.

It all started after eight minutes when he struck a super penalty kick almost from the halfway line that rebounded from an upright.

He followed by missing the wide conversion of a try by lively scrum half Matt Bennett, which he had created with a huge, angled kick and though he did land an awkward penalty after 24 minutes, he also missed two others plus the conversion of a late try by winger Ian Murray.

To be fair, the visitors deserved their victory.

They were stronger forward, had an excellent full back in Viney, who kept popping up everywhere, and also an enterprising scrum half in Sean Hall.

Things might have been different if Caldy’s own fly half, the young but occasionally erratic Ben McPherson, had not thrown a loose pass wide of a supporting runner after breaking through the visitors’ defence with a fine run on the half hour.

Both White and hooker Neil Dowridge were sin-binned by referee Guy Steele-Bodger.

A youthful Caldy clearly have a good deal of potential and they will be hoping to show that when they take on Chester in the Cheshire Cup final at New Brighton tomorrow.