LPRFC 19 Chicago North Side 33

There are defeats and then there are self-portraits, and what Lincoln Park produced here was something uncomfortably close to the latter. Against a NorthSide Chicago side who knew exactly what they were about from the first whistle, Park looked like a team still warming up when the real work had long since begun.

The opening quarter told the story with brutal economy. NorthSide needed no invitation — they simply helped themselves to one, courtesy of an interception as Park attempted to move the ball wide after a high kick. It was the sort of error that happens when minds are elsewhere, and on this evidence, several of Park's were still in the changing room.

Credit where it was due: Loomis hauled Lincoln Park back level with a try that had real quality about it — a galloping, long-limbed burst through the midfield that suggested, briefly, a different match might be in the offing. It was not. Two turnovers in quick succession handed NorthSide the initiative back, and their winger proved a menace of the most irritating kind — cutting inside off his wing with the sureness of a man who had done it a hundred times, and would do it again, which he duly did. Two tries from the same source, the same route, the same outcome: 24-7 and the match, to all intents and purposes, already decided.

Geiser's sharp-witted tap penalty on the stroke of half-time reduced the arrears and at least gave Lincoln Park something to build on during the interval conversation. Whether that conversation was frank enough is another matter entirely.

The second half was, at least, a more honest affair — more competitive in spirit if not in arithmetic. Park's try came from Mazy off the bench, a welcome injection of urgency from a substitute who carried more purpose than much of what preceded him. NorthSide added one more of their own to settle the matter beyond doubt, and settled it they did.

The brightest spark throughout, and it should be said loudly, was Schwartz. His running lines through the centres were genuinely clever — not just carrying hard but reading the defence and finding angles that the midfield around him was not always quick enough to exploit. He deserved better support. In the forwards, Tommy Lyons was characteristically industrious at the tackle, and Loomis — scorer and busy presence — gave Lincoln Park some forward momentum in a match where the pack was too often second to the breakdown.

After the quality Park had shown earlier in the campaign, this was a deflating afternoon — not without moments, but profoundly lacking the intensity that had made them worth watching. The table does not forgive slow starts, and neither should the players looking at themselves in the mirror this week.