Staring down the barrel but hope lives on
ALTHOUGH a busy weekend for rugby in general there were only two games for the Macclesfield Senior XV’s last Saturday with a sadly heavy defeat for the 1st XV at Priory Park against the ‘Green Machine’ from Wharfedale.
They capitalised on Macclesfield’s uneasy campaign by completing a ‘double’ over the home side – although at half time with the visitors holding a narrow 13-15 lead there were hopes of better things.
‘Dale scored an unanswered nineteen second half points to run out convincing 34-13 winners at the close, which leaves Macclesfield sitting just above bottom club Peterborough Lions who lost in a high scoring game over at Lockwood Park, Huddersfield. The Blues are ten points behind third from bottom South Leicester who went down at home to Stourbridge in another pointsfest.
All of which see – with just nine games left before the final whistle blows on the season – Macclesfield staring down the barrel but as I repeatedly say in this column, it is not over until it is impossible to get ourselves out of the dreaded bottom three places in the N2N table.
So hope must live on for a few more games, starting at Blaby on Saturday when we visit Leicester Lions (directions later in this column) but take note that kick off time there will be 2pm.
In the other games around Two North there were wins for Chester who beat Hull Ionians in a top of the table clash at Vicars Cross and for Fylde who beat Hinckley to top them all with a convincing 21-8 win.
Otley beat Sheffield Tigers in the all Yorkshire clash and at Sedgley Park the home side suffered heavy defeat at the hands of Tynedale.
Around Priory Park on Saturday the only other game saw our Second XV take on and beat Chester in the first game of Conference ‘A’ as we approach the business end of the season. Scoreline of 29-28 would indicate a good hard and very close game.
Away from Macclesfield, of course, the Six Nations continued with wins for Wales over Italy in Rome and Ireland who came away from Murrayfield with a good 22-13 result on Saturday. England thumped France at Twickenham on Sunday to give us all hope (again) of a potential Grand Slam come the close of the campaign – we can but hope – whilst over in St Lucia our cricketers are making a decent fist of things so far in the Third Test.
I can’t end this column without just a brief mention of ‘that other Rugby game’ – the one with thirteen players – where my home town team recorded another early season win to give some hope of a decent campaign to come during the next few months so roll on the next few games.
Hoping for a full weekend of fixtures this week and for those travelling to Leicester Lions this Saturday directions as follows:
Leicester Lions RUFC, Lutterworth Road, Blaby, Leicester LE8 4DY which from my Tytherington home is some 82 miles so allow a good 2 hours for travel beating on mind that kick off there will be 2pm.
SATURDAY’S FIXTURES:
1st v Leicester Lions – Away – 2.pm. 2nd v Preston Grasshoppers – Away 3rd v Stockport 2 – Home 4th v Northwich 3 – Home
That’s it for now and, as I have previously mentioned, this is my last season as ‘Clubman’ and I would welcome contact from any club member who wishes to continue this role which, over the years has been successfully done by initially Pete Ord followed by Jim Sandles and Bob Jenner and latterly myself for the best part of if not more than twenty years. I live in hope...
Enjoy your Rugby – I do.