Albion have to Fylde threaten

PLYMOUTH Albion rode out a second-half fightback from Fylde to claim victory with tries from Rupert Freestone, Nile Dacres, Matt Crosscombe and Dan Pullinger.

The Devonport side got off to the faster start, showing their power in the set-piece by shoving Fylde backwards and stealing the ball from under the visitors’ noses.

Albion opened their account after just five minutes when a pile of Plymouth bodies tumbled over the whitewash, with hooker Freestone the man in possession.

Matthew Shepherd added the extras to give Albion the start they were looking for.

Plymouth’s second try saw lock Dacres crash over the line out wide to extend Albion’s lead to 14.

However, they were not to have the game all their own way.

As the first half progressed, Fylde grew into the fixture.

The Lancashire side fashioned several scoring opportunities by pinning Albion inside their own 22.

This led to a well-worked try for Fylde wing James Bailey on 30 minutes. The powerful winger jinked his way past two Albion defenders to slide over and halve the deficit following Sam Bedlow’s conversion.

Despite Fylde’s revival, Plymouth wing Cross- combe was the fastest to react to a wild kick chase, to make the score 21-7 at the interval.

Albion replacement prop Pullinger broke the deadlock after half-time, bundling over from a rolling maul to score the bonus-point try on his return from injury.

Shepherd was unable to make it four out of four when his conversion bounced back off the upright, to leave the scores on 26-7 with ten to play.

Fylde responded five minutes later with a couple of tries from Nicholas Gray and Jack Turley, which brought the score back to 26-21 and set up a tense finale.

Disappointingly, the game ended on a sour note when Fylde No.8 David