It's all kicked off down under
The British Police kicked off
their Police World Cup campaign
with a match against Papa New
Guinea (PNG) and won 18-16.
Both sides began the game
confidently and tested each other’s
defences, with PNG coming out
best from the early exchanges and
taking the lead after five minutes
by scoring from a penalty following
a high tackle close to the posts.
Adam Fogarty regained Adam
Newton’s hanging kick then PNG
gave away a penalty, allowing
Newton to level the scores.
After Daniel Burton made a
powerful burst and Steven Brown
capitalised on it, Newton converted
on the 10-minute mark to
take the score to 8-2.
The first water break due to
the searing heat saw the PNG
team return to the action fired
up, slightly too fired up as the
touch judge had to intervene following
a series of high tackles
and swinging arms. With five
minutes of the first half remaining,
the score was 12-6.
The British Police side
returned from the break rejuvenated,
with strong drives from
Andy Woodhead and Rasheed
Alawiye and another jinking run
from Brown, who released Andy
Eastham to power his way over
the line in the corner. The tough
conversion was just missed by
Newton, giving the British Police
a 16-6 lead.
Fifteen minutes of highintensity
football with crunching
tackles from both sides began. It
was broken by a smart spinning
run by Peter Sutcliffe followed by
some crisp inter-passing amongst
the forwards, forcing PNG to give
away a penalty. Newton stepped
up to give the British side the
lead with eight minutes left on
the clock.
Both sides played well, with
PNG showing some great offloads
in the tackle. The charge
down of a British kick by PNG
had the spectators on the edge of
their seats. Fortunately, the alert
referee spotted a knock-on as
PNG raced towards the line.
The British side gave away a
penalty in the last 45 seconds of
play but provided a nail-biting
final set close to the try line and
the final score of the bruising
encounter was 18-16.
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British Police lost to Australian Police 32-18 |
The British Police were then
beaten by the Australian Police
32-18 and outclassed by New
Zealand, who showed why they
are the World Cup favorites. In
their final pool game the British
Police face a powerful Fijian
team, who lost by a small margin
to the New Zealanders and have
been wreaking havoc ever since.
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