After 10 minutes of the match of Saturday game between Stockport and Birkenhead Park the home side were trailing by 15 points after two well worked tries from their centre Mark McKeon and a conversion and penalty from their wing Dave Hall.
The Stockport faithful thought they were in for a very long afternoon. If the visitors had been allowed to continue in the same vein the margin may have become embarrassing. Instead Stockport steeled themselves and started to the simple defensive things right.
The first sign of this was that after repeatedly recycling the ball the ball the visitors resorted to kicking possession away and the Stockport defence held firm. Their cause wasn't served by having their wing Nick Wroe yellow carded after 20 minutes. Stockport dug in again and saw out Nick's 10 minute absence without further penalty. They at least didn't have any attacking to distract them. Stockport did actually not have possession of the ball in the opposition half until 10 minutes into the 2nd half!
At half time prop Oli Low and No.8 Ruan Van Schalkwyk were replaced with Zak Hammond at Hooker and Hugo Corbett at Flanker.
Even with the slope of the pitch and the wind at their backs Stockport were still struggling to get into visitor territory. Then 10 minutes after the break Stockport began to mount their first attack of the game. The possession went to a ruck 10 out in front of the posts. Mike Raven sent the ball right and Greg Newton received the ball. We were then treated to a piece of Newton magic, a shimmy a show of the ball, a side step all rolled into one and it bought him the inch of space he needed. Conversion from Dave Rees and suddenly we were in the game 7-15.
Suddenly Stockport were looking a different team and then ten minutes later the gap was even narrower when James Drew found himself a gap to squeeze through. No conversion 12-15. We saw the move of the match with ball going from Nick Wroe and back again Craig Cooper down the far wing after we'd turned ball over in our 22. The try of season just went begging yards from the line when too many cooks spoiled the broth. Soon after the home side lost Hugo Corbett with a yellow card and his impact on the game was clear as they came back under pressure in his absence and were forced to concede to penalties. 12-21. With Hugo restored had less than 10 minutes were left to turn the game round. It looked a tall task but the team set about the task with single minded determination and in the 33rd minute Dave Marwick forced himself from close range. Dave Rees slotted the crucial conversion to bring the score 19-21. Any score for Stockport would do.
The clock was winding down and we forced the ball to centre field in front of the posts. As the ball was about to come out there was a Birkenhead Park player clearly at least 2 metres offside but to Stockportâ€™s horror there was no signal of penalty advantage from the referee. The ball was passed to Dave Rees. He took aim and kicked. It was so low that it nearly brushed the cross bar, that is the upper edge of the cross bar...The referee's arm was raised this time. The final play of the day and the winning drop goal from Dave Rees. 22-21. What a win.....

Oh a brief mention of the team's newly appointed waterboy.
1) Mr A Fuller nearly manged to become the first waterboy to get yellow carded when his verbal intervention upset the ref.
2) Then at the end of the game Andy got all the way from pitch side and into the bar blissfully ignorant of the important fact that we had actually won the game thinking that it was a draw.....

The Rambler