Club crush woeful Ionians

As one-sided a contest as you’ll get.  Blackheath scored ten tries, five in each half, in this demolition of struggling Ionians who are now mathematically relegated.

Dan Hiscocks crossed first, after the Club had won a penalty from their first put-in and kicked to touch, and when Harry Fry had once again hit Freddie Owen with lineout ball, and the pack had driven forward, Mark Cooke’s neat one-handed pass sent Jake Lloyd over for a second after, giving the visitors a 14-0 lead in fewer minutes.

Lloyd scored his second, breaking through tackles again on the right flank, and as Blackheath’s new second-row partnership of Jamie Ure and Shek Sheriff continued to power the Club’s scrum, and possession was turned over with ease, Cooke’s break following set-piece ball on halfway set up Hiscocks for his brace.

Unfortunately, it was Cooke’s final action of the contest as the Club’s fly-half left the field with a hamstring injury, but Henry Staff took charge of kicking duties as Nick Foster sent Kariym Irving over, striking a fine conversion and giving Blackheath a 33-0 lead at the break.

Markus Burcham sent Lloyd across for his hat-trick after the re-start, and Irving scored his second as Ben Ransom came up into the line from full-back, but the biggest cheer of the afternoon greeted Ionians’ first try as centre Callum Smith joined the maul off lineout ball to drive over.

However, the score that probably summed up the afternoon best came on the hour and brought up the half-century as Stef Liebenberg directed Staff to turn away from touch and kick a high ball open, Foster collecting and scoring in acres of space.

Ionians have had a dreadful return to National League One, losing director of rugby Martyn Wood to Yorkshire Carnegie before the current campaign had even started, and rocked by the sudden death of centre Billy Hardy at Christmas, but they upped their game and showed more spirit in the second period of this match.

Prop Harry Butler went over for a second catch and drive score for the Yorkshiremen and Ionians’ George Mewburn would have the final word after some nice handling sent the back-row across.

However, by that time Irving had completed a hat-trick on debut by breaking tackles with a storming 35-metre break on the left touchline, and good hands had seen Foster across for Blackheath’s best winning margin since they defeated Manchester 56-7 at Grove Park in March 2010.

Next Saturday Blackheath are back at Well Hall when Birmingham Moseley are the visitors.  Kick off is at 3 pm.

Hull Ionians

Tries:   Smith, Butler, Mewburn

Conv:  Kirk

Blackheath

Tries:   Hiscocks 2, Lloyd 3, Irving 3, Foster 2

Conv:  Cooke 3, Staff 4