Wharfedale RU
| PICK OF THE PAST | | | READERS' LETTERS | | | COUNTRYFILE |  | | | CARTOONS | | |
|
|
|
Greens set to take on desperate Henley
 |
| Wharfedale's Luke Gray drags down a Blackheath player in the Greens' win last Saturday. |
Wharfedale are coming off one of their most stellar performances of the season as they travel south on Saturday for an important match against relegation-threatened Henley.
Greens' coach Peter Hartley said his team's 39-7 victory at The Avenue last week was Wharfedale's "most complete performance of the season".
He praised his side's effort, accuracy and discipline and said: "Everybody did what they were trained to do for 80 minutes."
He said what made the Greens' performance even more impressive was that they played so well in some difficult, windy conditions.
"We got the tactics right and played the conditions very well."
Fourth placed Blackheath struggled in the conditions and didn't seem to have the same desire to win as the Greens.
"Our motivation was certainly stronger than theirs," said Hartley.
Although he said that this weekend's opponent, Henley, need three wins to pass Wharfedale in the table (assuming the Greens don't win), he and his squad are concentrating on one game at a time.
 |
| Make Bedworth came off the bench and played well in the win against Blackheath. |
Hartley said: "It would be silly to think we've done enough. If we lose this weekend things can change very quickly."
He said that the Greens have been under pressure for a long time.
"We've been playing well in most games since the loss to Exeter but we need to improve again this weekend."
Although Henley's defensive record is outstanding (bettered only by Otley, Stourbridge and Waterloo) their scoring record is the worst in the league. They average only 12.4 points per match, against Wharfedale's 21.3. The teams drew 12-12 at The Avenue in September.
Hartley said: "Henley have a very big pack of forwards. That's their strength and they play to that strength. They're not useless behind the scrum but that's not their strength."
However he did say the pressure is on the home side.
"They're getting to the point where they're desperate."
For the first time in many months, all four of Wharfedale's England Counties backs will start, Andy Hodgson moving to full back in place of the absent Adam Whaites, with Mark Bedworth starting at inside centre. Hartley said Bedworth earned his place by playing very well in the second half against Blackheath.
Kick off is at 2pm.
Wharfedale: Andy Hodgson; Chris Malherbe, Andy Baggett (c), Mark Bedworth, Simon Horsfall; Luke Gray, James Doherty; Tom Horner, Gavin Hindle, Chris Steel, Oliver Renton, Antony Capstick, Alastair Allen, Sam Stitcher, Rob Baldwin. Replacements: Ben Fear, Adam Mason, David Clements, Neil Baggett.
2:41pm Thursday 6th March 2008
Print 
Email this 
Comment
What are these links for?
If you liked this article and would like to share it with others on the web who might be searching for good content we've made it easy for you to do it.
At the bottom of all articles, you'll see links to six sites. These sites - commonly called 'social bookmark' or 'social news' sites - have large communities of web users who share and rate interesting, useful and fun things on the web.
Clicking the links will automatically add the address of the story you are reading to one of these sites, letting you share it with others. Each site will ask you to register to share stories. Registration is free and once a member, you can store, recommend and search for stories that interest you.
More on Digg
More on del.icio.us
More on Furl
More on reddit
More on NowPublic/
More on Yahoo!
