Mark puts boot in as Club Cooke up treat at Moseley
A PERFECT kicking display from Blackheath’s Mark Cooke helped steer his side to a hard-fought victory in tricky Billesley Common conditions.
The former Jersey flyhalf slotted over all three of his penalties to edge the visitors over the line, much to the relief of their head coach James Shanahan.
“For the last 20 minutes we were stuck in our 22 and we defended manfully,” he said.
“That is outstanding character and is something I’ve been asking for over the last few weeks, so really credit to the boys. We’re happy to get four points.
“It’s something we focussed on for this week because I’ve been really disappointed with the last few games.
“It’s always tough coming to Moseley. It’s always a really physical game.”
Cooke’s first successful kick came after just seven minutes and those three points were all that separated the sides at the break.
There could well have been a try for Blackheath midway through the half when No.8 Tom Burns peeled off from the back of a scrum and although he looked to have dotted the ball down, the officials denied him his glory saying the ball hadn’t been grounded.
As half-time approached, Moseley finally started to make inroads into the visitors’ 22 but came up against a solid defence. Their best chance of posting points fell to Ben Palmer and Cliffie Hodgson who tried to level the scores with a penalty apiece only for the kicks to fly wide of the posts.
The second half saw the Red and Blacks raise their game and were the stronger side.
Within four minutes back row Buster Lawrence had launched a scorching run through the centre only for the move to be halted short of the line before another Moseley attack ended with the ball being turned over on the Blackheath line.
It looked like being just a matter of time before the pressure told and Lawrence was involved when the try the only one of the game finally came on 52 minutes. Mason Tonks started the move with a powerful run and the ball was then worked by back row pair Lawrence and Mason Dawes to second row Danny Wright on the wing
to dive over.
Palmer’s conversion lacked direction and Moseley’s lead was short-lived with back-to-back Cooke penalties swinging the game back in Blackheath’s favour.
A late Palmer penalty hit the crossbar but Moseley head coach Pete Glackin was still pleased with his side’s display.
He said: “I think when you talk about a top National One game, that’s what we’ve got today from both sides. There was no quarter given from either side and tactically and technically it was two teams trying to work each other out.
“Blackheath are a strong side, a well-coached side, a good traditionally ball-playing side who score lots of points and we were proud that we restricted them to kicks at goal and that we scored the only try of the game. We were very unfortunate not to go over in the second half as well.”