Town humbled as Barrow run in 13 tries
Last updated 13:53, Monday, 05 May 2008
Barrow 66 Workington Town 6: Barrow stamped their authority over Cumbrian rivals Workington with a comprehensive thrashing at Craven Park.
The home side ran up a cricket score as they left their neighbours battered, bruised and embarrassed with 13 tries in the 80 minutes.
Mike Whitehead delivered the early blows to the Town defence with a first half hat-trick, but the rest of the Barrow side chipped in with punches of their own, leaving the visitors clinging to the ropes for dear life come the final whistle.
It had started on two minutes with heavyweight Lee Dutton bashing his way through the Workington line with power and pace and offloading to Pat Weisner on his shoulder, the latter walking over for a score near the posts.
Whitehead grabbed the second four minutes later when he reached Darren Holt’s stabbed kick to the corner first and touched it down ahead of Iain Marsh.
The early onslaught continued as Weisner hung a high kick to the left corner on the last tackle and used his size advantage over Mark Routledge to pluck the ball from the air and ground it.
Brad Nicholls spotted a gap and showed surprising pace to outstrip Routledge and Mark McCully and race away for a 20-0 lead to the home team.
Whitehead then claimed a 19-minute hat-trick as Holt set James Nixon free down the left with a fine pass and the winger fed his centre at just the right moment to allow him to cruise over.
The feeling of dread mounted just after the half-hour mark as Whitehead offloaded to Nixon and he left Routledge for dead as he headed for the posts.
McCully stood firm in his path, but Nicholls was there in support and took the pass to go in at the right corner for a 28-0 half-time lead.
As if the tries they were conceding were not bad enough, Town then had McCully stretched from the field with a back injury after he fell awkwardly onto the knee of Jamie Butler in a tackle. At least he did not have to suffer the onslaught still to come.
Town came close to scoring on half-time, but Routledge was sent flying as he went for the corner by the combined efforts of Whitehead and Nixon with a none shall pass attitude.
Matt Tunstall - by far Town’s best player on the day - came close as well after the break, stopped on the line and almost dropped on his head. From the resulting penalty, Ryan Benjafield was held short before Forber knocked on badly and any pressure that was building evaporated.
Instead, the score came at the other end as Andy Ellis went in from dummy half in the left corner, exploiting poor defence on the blind side.
And within two minutes Liam Finch, on as a second half substitute for Holt and making a return for Barrow after his brief sojourn up the coast with Whitehaven, did what he has always done for the Raiders and opened his legs on halfway from a Weisner pass and went all the way to the line.
It was 36-0 by this point and for a brief moment Barrow relaxed.
Routledge ran from the wing through a gap, but was stopped by Nick Beach and Barrow came back to life.
Martin Ostler went through a hole on the left and was cantering to the line with four men in support.
As Forber came close, he passed out to Nixon, who gladly took the ball and touched down under the posts.
Finch grabbed his second after the most horrendous high kick from Forber allowed Ostler to set him free and 50 points were in sight. Now Workington decided to show some class, 68 minutes in and with any visiting fans considering suicide.
Chris Young looked to have scored when he went over, but referee Matthew Thomason called things back for a penalty for Barrow ripping the ball out.
No matter though as Tanni Lavulavu went in from the first tackle, stretching his arm over the line against a sleeping Raiders defence.
Then Barrow really started to rub it in with their final three tries from Nixon, Harrison and Beach.
RAIDERS: Craig Bower, Mike Backhouse, Mike Whitehead, Liam Harrison, James Nixon, Darren Holt, Brad Nicholls, Lee Dutton, Andy Ellis, Mick Cassidy, Dave Armitstead, Martin Ostler, Pat Weisner. Replacements (all used): Liam Finch, Nick Beach, Paul Raftery, Jamie Butler.
TOWN: Mark McCully, Mark Routledge, Iain Marsh, Jason Mossop, Ryan Blair, Robert Lunt, Carl Forber, Ryan Benjafield, Scott Burgess, Dean Burgess, Ryan Campbell, Dexter Miller, Franco Kmet. Replacements (all used): Jay Duffy, Matthew Tunstall, Chris Young, Tanni Lavulavu.
Attendance: 1,147.
