York win

By Dave Farrell
Date: 30/4/2001

Haven strolled to victory in this one sided affair at York ,notching up their 5th straight win , and their second half century of points in as many games. But Widnes are sufficiently concerned to have a spy on the terraces..

Easy...but now it gets Tricky?
On Sunday both sides made a lot of changes to the programmed teams, York out of necessity, though Haven suprisingly were without Mark Cox and Ian Devlin both carrying knocks from last week. Big Phil Sherwen came it at number 8 while Gary Purdham came into the back row as replacements.Wesley Wilson came in at full back after missing the last few games with concussion
On a dry ,sunny but cool afternoon it was the Haven who scored first when Sherwen pounced on a loose ball in the York in goal. Thereafter haven scored at regular intervals through Kirkbride,Lester , Robert Purdham and two well taken trys from Mark Wallace,showing he is well on his way back to form after a long lay off . For goals from Paul O'Neill made the half time score 32-nil.
It was wrapped up at that point and maybe it was too easy. Sloppy play and unecessary errors crept into our game and though we scored four trys in the second period we could and should have scored more as chances went abegging. Second half scores came from Seeds,Lester , Kirkbride and ONeill , who added another three goals for a personal points haul of 18 (try and seven goals) on the day. Another big performance from the ex-Kells player along with Dean Vaughan who gave his usual industrious display, Robert Purdham came on at loose forward for his brother ( recurrance of the an ankle injury ?) and showed some good skills, though I was delighted for Mark Wallace. Out for a long time with that troublesome knee his two scores today showed what a lethal finisher he can be , and I am sure there's plenty more where they came from.
One interested spectator there today was Neil Kelly, new coach at Widnes . He was no doubt looking for tips ahead of the Vikings visit to the Recre next week . I don't think he will have noted much , other than he will expect Whitehaven to be a much tougher outfit on their own turf next Sunday.
Haven: Wilson, O'Neil, Seeds, Hill, Wallace, Joe, Kirkbride, Sherwen, Lester, Vaughan, Miller, Smith, G.Purdham, Kiddie, R.Purdham, R.Campbell, Cunningham.