Boro fade away after bright start
LITTLEBOROUGH RUFC came up short on Saturday after they suffered a narrow home defeat to De La Salle.
The early positive play by Boro didn’t last and the visitors were able to come out on top on a wet and windy afternoon at Rakewood Road.
Littleborough were the better team in the early stages and they immediately went on the attack from kick off, showing good determination and good forwards pressure in their opponents’ 22 metres area.
A breakout from De La Salle then saw Boro’s centre David Kearns retrieve the ball and put in a strong kick back downfield into touch.
On 12 minutes, Littleborough had a player sin-binned for 10 minutes and this was soon followed by a nice distance kick to touch by captain Andy Bairstow.
Towards the end of the first quarter, Boro received an opportunity for the first points of the match and Don Kershaw took full advantage by converting a nice penalty kick.
With their sin binned player now back on the pitch, LIttleborough looked to extend their lead, with the wingers performing well.
There was then a delay to the match for an injury to a De La Salle player, followed with good defence work by Boro’s Ted Chadwick.
Things were made difficult for the hosts though when they then had player being sent off, allowing De La Salle to cross the line for the opening try of the afternoon, but there was no conversion.
That began an action-packed end to the half, as Littleborough immediately hit straight back with an express run from hooker Mathew Goldthorpe, who went over for his team’s first try, but again the kick wasn’t accurate and there was no conversion.
It looked like Boro would be ahead at the break, but the away side got hold of the ball and ran in their second try, this time successfully adding the extras to make it 12-8 to De La Salle at half-time.
The start of the second half saw Boro’s Chris Hough take to the field and very soon he was involved in a brilliant cross field kick to his right winger Don Kershaw, who made a great catch of the ball and ran in Boro’s second try of the afternoon, but just like earlier, there was no conversion.
Very strong attacking running from the visitors meant they were now making a greater impact on the match, and soon they were successful in collecting their third try, which they also converted.
De La Salle started to take over from that point onwards, and they piled more misery onto Littleborough when they scored another converted try to increase their lead in the match.
Boro didn’t give up though, and towards the end of the game they managed to reduce the deficit when Mark Murgatroyd went over for a well-deserved try after the effort he had put in.
It was too little too late though, as Boro came up short and were condemned to a 26-18 defeat by De La Salle.