Preston Grasshoppers 12 Fylde 38: Hoppers’ coach reads the riot act
Preston Grasshoppers gifted-wrapped five league points for neighbours Fylde with a display which had head coach Dan Orwin seething.
“We were just not good enough,” he said. “We were flat and they wanted it more than us.
“We are not transferring what we do in training into games and the scoreline is a reflection of where we’re at.
“The players have got some thinking to do. There was poor positioning in defence, we never got our attack going and every back made a couple of mistakes.”
His counterpart, Fylde joint coach Alex Loney,said he was “really happy” with his side’s performance. “After a nervy start”, he was delighted to get “a comfortable win away from home. We put long spells of play together.”
Despite taking the lead after 11 minutes through Jacob Bowne’s try, well converted by Greg Smith in sleeting rain, Hoppers proceeded to make just about every error in the book – missed tackles, missed touches, knock-ons, poor support play and a failure to come to terms with referee Jack Moorhouse’s strict crackdown on high tackles.
Within five minutes, Fylde were level as prop Corey Bowker had the freedom of Lightfoot Green to gallop under the posts. Patrick Bishop, increasingly impressive at fly-half, converted and obliged again after weak defence saw lock Matt Garrod romp over for the second try.
A flowing attack brought an unconverted try for Mike Walton to make it 19-7 at the break.
Despite wholesale changes early in the second half, Hoppers continued to struggle and Fylde forwards Lewis Quinn, from close range, and Walton again, from a tap penalty, took the lead to an embarrassing 31-7 before home skipper Scott Richardson crashed over from short range.
Inevitably, though, the visitors had the last word, with scrum-half Ben Gould launching a solo break for his side’s sixth try, again converted by Bishop.
To compound Hoppers’ miserable day in front of easily the biggest crowd of the season, two of their replacements, Rory Brand and Max Loboda, received yellow cards. The defeat drops them to 11th in National League Two North – they were sixth a few short weeks ago – and, with no game until January 11, Orwin warned there will be no rest over the festive season.
“They’ll be back in for training next Saturday,” he said. “We can’t give them the week off.”