Hoppers lost for the first time at home this season in an embarrassing display to a Westoe side that offered little in attack but capitalised well on several key mistakes. All four of the visitors tries came from an error or piece of poor play by Hoppers which must have infuriated players and coaches as much as the home crowd. With both sides falling foul of the referee’s whistle of many occasions the game never really found a rhythm.
Things did however start well as Tom Ashton made a scything break up the middle of the Westoe defence in the opening minute, he was well supported by Mike Millward, Cameron Berry and Tom Bell who carried the ball up to the try line and after a few forays by the forwards Hoppers were able to suck in the defence and Matt Hughes took advantage of a vacant blindside to score.
Hoppers then proceeded to allow Westoe into the game through a series of penalties, two of which were well converted by the impressive Mark Bedworth who was successful with 6 of his 7 kicks at goal. Bell put Hoppers back into the lead with a penalty on the half hour mark when visiting back row Aaron Myers, who was sin binned for the offence, was guilty of killing the ball at a ruck.
Those who thought Hoppers would press on with a man advantage like they had done in the opening game were surely disappointed to see them go behind within seconds of the restart. After gathering the kick Hoppers did not chase Mark Edwards clearing kick well and allowed Westoe to launch an attack first through full back Charlie Rayner and then James Clark who found a huge hole in the midfield to sprint in untouched from 30 yards. Bedworth added the extras and the visitors went into the half with an unexpected 13-8 lead in a half where they had been on the back foot throughout and with only the intelligent directional kicking of Bedworth to cling on to.
If the first half was poor by Hoppers then the second half was downright abysmal, three minutes into the half Hoppers were down to 14 men, with the sin binning on replacement Sean Hall, and had conceded a penalty try. A mistake in the Hoppers midfield on half way resulted with the ball going to ground, Clark and Gareth Kerr hacked on for Westoe and with the ball in the in goal area and Kerr looking favourite to reach it he was pulled back by Hall giving the referee no option but to award the penalty try and send Hall to the bin.
Hoppers tried to get some territory with the man disadvantage but Bedworth did a good job of pinning the home side back into their own half and from this Westoe took advantage of a stolen line out and when Bedworth ghosted through the line all that was left to do was draw the full back and lay off a well timed pass for Clark to score his second.
Westoe wrapped up a bonus point win in typical style as they pounced on yet another turn over to score. From a set move on half way Hoppers midfield did not look in synch and Scott Manning, who had looked shaky since coming on, delayed the pass but only managed to find Westoe’s Kerr who intercepted and raced away to secure all five points.
Hoppers will have to improve on these simple errors, especially as the travel to Loughborough to face the Students.
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