Roses in the sun

Last weekend saw Lancashire host Yorkshire in the rugby union County Championship for the Bill Beaumont Cup. The game was at Fylde: as 11 of the starting XV play there, it made sense. It is easy to get to, and this year the Blackpool South train had a couple of extra wagons, er, I mean carriages. Timetable changes made for a less convenient arrival time, but Fylde's excellent catering meant I could have lunch when I got there. I feel when attending rugby union that using the right cutlery matters, so the question is, should one eat the chilli with a fork or a spoon? A savoury dish suggests the former, but the latter will get the last of the rice from the polystyrene dish.

The Met Office app promised sunny intervals: the weather turned out better, with almost continuous sun.

Results earlier in the competition meant that the winner would go through to the final.

There was a good crowd, drawn by the weather and plenty of publicity. Oddly, Lancashire seemed only to start publicising the competition in earnest for the second game, against Durham: the first, at Chester, seemed very low key.

I took up position on the stand side, towards the end Lancashire were attacking, where I could look out from the shade. The hedge would have fallen foul of football ground grading authorities, who like the ground perimeter fence (they are not keen on hedges) to prevent viewing the game from outside the ground, and there were definite gaps. Not that I was planning to take pictures from the pavement.

These fixtures are robust affairs.

Penalty scores play a greater part in rugby union than in football or rugby league. Some attribute this to the points available for a penalty kick and a converted try. The points available may encourage a team to kick, but some suggest the points for a converted try may give an incentive to risk an infringement, sacrificing three points rather than a possible seven. A penalty try can also be given where an infringement prevents a try being scored. Yorkshire opened the scoring in this manner: Lancashire responded with a penalty kicked by Christopher Johnson.

In a game like this, there is always the risk of injury, and Chris was replaced shortly afterwards by Steve Collins.

A try from an individual run is good for a picture, this from Jordan Dorrington took Lancashire ahead just before half time.

I decided to stay put after half time, as it was the quietest part of the ground. With Lancashire, as is often the case, having the better of both possession and territory for the second half, my results were not as good as in the first, although I was close to some moves being built out of defence.

Further tries from Ryan de la Harpe and Chris Briers and another from Jordan Dorrington gave Lancashire a commanding lead. Jordan Dorrington was subsequently selected for the England Counties squad to tour Romania.

The game continued to keep the physios busy. Spare a thought for Yorkshire's replacement scrum half, Isaac Green, seen here watching Ryan de la Harpe putting the ball in to a scrum - within three or four minutes of coming on, he had to leave the field after an injury.

Lancashire's win took them to their seventh successive final. I did not realise I had been following the competition for that long: it seemed like only a couple of years ago seeing Yorkshire go through to the final at Harrogate and sitting opposite Alex Davies and James Doherty on the train back to Leeds - Alex and James went on to have successful careers at London Welsh and Cornish Pirates respectively.

After the game, I walked along the coast to Lytham. I say "coast", I think there was water between me and Southport. On arrival, I adjourned to the Taps. On an almost summer day, the Thistly Cross Whisky Cask Cider caught my eye. After this, the National Rail app suggested the train back to Preston left Blackpool South on time, but, on a single line branch, there are no signals to track progress, so I was twiddling my thumbs for 20 minutes and missed my connection. Northern Rail's Twitter feed was busy.

I, on the other hand, planned to catch a train, an actual train

The rest of the pictures from the game can be seen here.

Final score: Lancashire 29 (T Dorrington 2, de la Harpe, Briers; C Collins 3; P Johnson) Yorkshire 14