At the end of this match, a spectator said:  “I’ve seen good games, bad games and now I’ve seen that. It was worse than bad.” 

Another murmured into the ear of your correspondent: “I don’t envy you, having to write a report about that.”

It would be a huge understatement to call this match disappointing  – the 36 players from Wilmslow and Altrincham Kersal served up a complete dog’s breakfast.

It was the last home game of the season for the Wolves.  There was nothing at stake as neither side could finish the league higher than seventh or lower than ninth. 

It seemed as if the Wolves had decided to ignore their coach’s gameplan and to put on a dazzling thrilling display of passing and running. 

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the way that Kersal wanted to play.

They knew exactly where the Wilmslow threat would come from and they harried and tackled their opponents into a catalogue of misdirected and dropped passes.

The Wolves problems started in the contact areas, where they were barged about by their AK opponents. Consequently scrum-half Andy Walker was receiving slow, untidy ball with AK players swarming all over him.  

And that meant that Bob MacCallum, at No 10, didn’t have the time to orchestrate his passing and kicking as effectively as he normally does. 

His frequent demands for ‘control’ went unanswered as his team mates continued with the frantic helter-skelter stuff, which was getting them nowhere. 

Sam Cutts and Rick Hughes in the centre had no option but to run straight and hard into thick Alty traffic, frequently crossing the gain line.

But the problems  continued in the rucks they set up. 

It wasn’t the first time this season that the Wolves have been found out in the contact areas.

For their part AK had sufficient possession, especially from turnovers, to embarrass the home side but they didn’t possess the guile and skills to break down a stubborn defence. 

Throughout the season the Wolves have shown that they will tackle.

Play was held up for over 30 minutes in the first half when AK No 10 Rob Holloway was the victim of a serious injury which required hospitalisation.

Referee Daniels spotted the collision with a Wilmslow opponent and rightly stopped the game immediately.

There was another 15-minute delay in the second half when AK’s left winger Jack Wise suffered a bad leg injury, which also required hospital treatment.   

Once again referee Daniels had recognised a serious injury and had blown immediately. 

Both incidents were accidents and did not involve any inherently dangerous or foul play. 

Nevertheless the delays didn’t help the flow of the game and it was further disrupted when yellow cards were issued to Wilmslow’s Jordan Ayrey and AK’s Steve Richardson following a skirmish among the forwards in the last quarter. 

Only after two-and-a-quarter hours on the pitch did Mr Daniels bring proceedings to an end. 

By then a restless crowd had seen more than enough and had been calling for the game to be ended long before.

MacCallum kicked two penalties for the Wolves, the first after five minutes and the second five minutes from the end to settle the matter. 

The sole try of the game was scored by No 8 Alex Taylor after 20 minutes, when the Wolves pilfered a ball from a maul close to the AK 22.

Walker made a burst through the middle before offloading to Taylor on his shoulder. 

AK responded with a penalty from centre Chris Stewart just before the half-time break but he was off the mark late in the second half when a successful kick would at least have made the last few minutes interesting.