Heysham Atoms 16 - St Helen's Vine 30

A POOR start proved costly once again as the Atoms went down to a good St Helen's Vine side who had lost just one game all season.
Their open style of play, even in atrocious weather conditions, showed a great attitude towards the game.
The Atoms struggled for most of the first part of the game and at 24-0 down with 30 minutes to play, they were starting at a big defeat on their own patch.
But this Atoms team just doesn't know when or how to throw the towel in, and they really made a game of it, bringing the scores to 16-24 with five minutes remaining.
The Atoms started the game in familiar fashion, they completed their sets well, found good field position with their kicking game, and were able to test the full-back with a couple of bombs.
Unfortunately, any mistake has been hammered this season and this was again the case. A mis-directed pass found the touchline instead of the man and the St Helen's team didn't need a second opportunity to take advantage. This was the pattern throughout the match.
The slightest Atoms mistake was punished severely even though they were not playing that badly.
Two more scores as a direct result of the Atoms players being forced into handling errors from a lively Vine defence, took them into a comfortable 14-0 lead with 25 minutes played.
The Vine favoured the tactics of creating a short side and then hitting back to the blind with numbers.
This kept the Atoms defenders on their toes with centres Brooks and Downey excelling with their 'In their Faces' defence.
The Atoms opportunities were limited to chasing some telling kicks and following the human battering ram – Brian Cambidge – down the middle of the park.
The Atoms had to re-group just before the break when Captain Keith Hartlebury left the field with a suspected broken nose. This brought the lively Brooks up to scrum-half and a re-shuffle in the backs.
Livewire Rob Freedman has slotted into the full-back role and he was asked to do a lot of work bringing the ball away from the Atoms line.
Shortly after the re-start the Atoms fell further behind after an outrageous dummy was taken in the middle of the field.
This was even harder to take as it was the huge prop forward that threw it. Vine's stand off made them pay even further taking the scores to 24-nil.
The Vine must have thought that this signalled game over but the Atoms would just not accept this.
It was now their turn to gain some territorial advantage and force the errors at the other end of the field.
An attacking scrum saw Dave McVernon standing in the stand-off position and he blasted his way over his opposite number to register the Atoms first score of the day. Hope added the extras.
This period of pressure was further enhanced when a Hope "Bomb" wasn't dealt with properly and a goal line drop out resulted.
Good yards from Cambidge and Aldren put the pressure straight back on and with Vine having to defend deep to secure their line, stand-off Hope skipped inside his marker with a well taken try.
He again converted bringing the difference again to 14 points.
A piece of Atoms history was made when Pete Simpson came on the right wing, to make his debut, with 10 minutes to go.
Freedman at full-back made a half break and chipped ahead. Simpson and Birkitt gave chase and Simpson beat allcomers to put downward pressure on the ball to score with his first touch, in his first ever game of Rugby League – some record!
The conversion, if successful, would have took the Atoms within one score of the St Helen's team. Unfortunately the ball flew agonisingly across the face of the posts and the chance of an amazing recovery was gone.
The influential Vine stand-off had the final word in the game scoring with the final touch after the scrum 30 metres out.

ATOMS: Freedman, Pike, Goodfellow, Brooks, Downey, Hope, Hartlebury, McVernon, Aldren, Weed R, Hall, Bowman, Cambidge Reps: Woods, Weed S, Birkitt, Simpson
Match sponsors: Morties Munchies.