ONLINE EXCLUSIVE: Cooksammy serves up crucial rugby victory

5th Feb 2010

Men’s Rugby Union 1sts:

Birm­ing­ham

v

Man­ches­ter

22 — 13

Flood­lit and sod­den, the Bourn­brook Pitch was wit­ness to a game of huge mag­ni­tude on Wednes­day evening. Before the start of play, just three points sep­a­rated the six teams which occupy the places between run­away win­ners, Leeds 1sts, and the already rel­e­gated, bottom-placed New­cas­tle 2nds in the BUCS Pre­mier North B League. One of the sand­wiched six must join the Tynesiders in relegation.

Birm­ing­ham, how­ever, eased fears that they could fall vic­tim to the drop with a deserved vic­tory over a Man­ches­ter side which is now in grave dan­ger of los­ing its place in the league. The two teams com­peted well in a scrappy, close affair yet the night belonged to Birmingham’s back row, Ste­fan Cook­sammy, whose inspi­ra­tional intro­duc­tion, mid­way through the sec­ond half, added much-needed dynamism and, cru­cially, the final two tries of the match.

The sat­u­rated turf and slip­pery ball were poor con­di­tions for expan­sive rugby, and it was Man­ches­ter who adapted quick­est. After a period of sus­tained pres­sure, fly-half Guy Rid­ley broke through a fee­ble tackle to give the away side the lead after just ten min­utes. Full-back James Booth duly con­verted and then, after Birmingham’s blind-side flanker, Phil Wright, was penalised for hold­ing on, slot­ted home another three points from in front of the posts.

As the rain sub­sided the crowd swelled, but there was lit­tle in the way of enter­tain­ment for those who came to sup­port. The home side’s pack stamped its author­ity on the game; a dri­ving maul should have resulted in a penalty try but the ref­eree decided oth­er­wise. The injus­tice was reversed when, after unre­lent­ing play from the for­wards, ensur­ing Man­ches­ter couldn’t progress beyond their own five-metre line, Wright drove over the line to score.

Fly-half James Davidson’s con­vert­ing kick bounced on the cross­bar before falling the right side of the posts, reduc­ing Birmingham’s deficit to just three points at the interval.

The sec­ond half con­tin­ued in a sim­i­lar dis­jointed vein with numer­ous dropped balls and penal­ties con­ceded by both sides. Davidson’s right boot lev­elled the scores before the away team retook the lead, scrum-half Johnny Whit­tle send­ing a con­fi­dent kick over at the other end.

The turn­ing point in the match arrived in the form of the out­stand­ing Cook­sammy. His pace and agility in the back row roused Birm­ing­ham. The home side won a line-out on their opposition’s twenty-two; after quick inter­play a blind-side pop pass was col­lected by Cook­sammy whose arc­ing run took him into a vacant five-metre chan­nel from where he scored in the corner.

David­son missed the con­se­quent oppor­tu­nity to con­vert, but the vibrant Cook­sammy put the game beyond all doubt with an oppor­tunis­tic final try, inter­cept­ing a poorly judged pass in the Man­cun­ian back­line before sprint­ing 40 metres to touch down under the posts. The Birm­ing­ham sup­port broke out into cho­rus as the Man­ches­ter play­ers cut despon­dent and defeated figures.

Birmingham’s num­ber eight, James Roche admit­ted that it was ‘a relief’ to have won. The three points have, bar­ring an excep­tional set of results in the final two fix­tures of the sea­son, steered a Cooksammy-galvanised Birm­ing­ham towards safety.