Promising start goes on as Ormskirk pip rivals
SATURDAY saw Ormskirk visit their old rivals Wigan RUFC – and come away 9-3 winners – in the round six fixture of the ADM Premiership.
Wigan, promoted last season with Ormskirk, have still to settle into the new division while Ormskirk had won three and lost two of their previous fixtures and had the possible psychological advantage of having beaten Wigan in the last two meetings.
Ormskirk were missing a number of personnel and were greeted with a bitterly cold and wet afternoon which got colder as the afternoon progressed.
While the travelling support tried to keep warm, the players of both sides tore into each other with a series of ferocious tackles and tenacious defending as an upper hand was sought.
Strong runs from Hodgson, Knowles and Pagan were brought to abrupt endings while Rivers, Denton Williams, Ball and Evans were offering a blanket defence which smothered the efforts of the Wigan forwards to establish momentum.
With the match being played out between the twenty metre areas, matters burst into life as Hewitt, Hall and Dykes combined to break clear from their own try line. Just short of the halfway line their forward momentum was brought to a halt but good recycled ball kept Wigan on the back foot.
A series of home infringements saw Ormskirk awarded a penalty just in from the touchline. Rather than clearing to touch to get a lineout, White chose to take a shot a goal, a brave choice given the angle and the distance from the posts. The ball however was hit sweetly and sailed effortlessly over to open the scoring at 3-0.
From the restart, play quickly settled into the established patterns of any attempts at open play being quickly quashed by thundering tackles and well-drilled defensive patterns which saw runs by Webster, Walker, Everitt and Beswick quickly halted and turned into home attacks which were met with the same commitment from Ormskirk.
A period of Wigan pressure was finally ended as Beswick put in a big clearing kick upfield.
The relief was short lived as Wigan returned play into the Ormskirk half and benefited from a converted penalty following an offside decision.
The second period saw play open up for short passages as the defensive efforts and heavy conditions were taking a toll but not to a point when either try line was threatened.
Ormskirk were the more successful with the forays into the opponents’ half with Millington making a lot of ground and putting in a number of big hitting tackles.
Pressure from these forays forced a further series of home infringements as they sought to contain Ormskirk progress.
Given the opportunity, two of the penalties were converted courtesy of the boot of White.
At 9-3 in favour of Ormskirk with light failing and temperatures quickly falling both sides launched into a final frenetic 15 minutes of sustained effort to break through for an opening try, but to no avail.
With the final whistle Ormskirk continued their promising start to the season with a further four points in credit and another challenging away match next weekend at Fleetwood to look forward to.