Moor close first half with fine flourish

MOOR travelled to close namesakes Moore at the weekend and completed the first half of the season’s fixtures in winning style.

Moor were dominant throughout and it was only some dogged defence from the home side which prevented the margin of victory being even wider.

The visitors had the upper hand for most of the game over the Warrington side.

The home side kicked off down the slope, but the visitors returned with ball with interest, as a break by their midfield took play deep into their opposition’s half where they were immediately awarded a penalty, which fly-half Mark Edwards kicked – 3-0 with only a minute played.

A few minutes later, Moore had the opportunity to equalise, but their penalty missed the target. Moor continued to dominate the play with ample ball from the set pieces and darting runs by their back line and Edwards was soon again on the mark with another penalty kick from some 35 metres out.

Mid-way through the first period, Moor were awarded a penalty five metres from the home side’s line, elected to take a scrum and were immediately awarded another penalty due to the pressure exerted on the Moore pack.

Quick thinking by No.8 and captain, Ben Jones, caught the opposition napping as he took a quick tap and charged over the line for a try, converted by Edwards.

The home side finally opened their account with a try of their own, following their best period of play in the half.

It came from a penalty that they chose to run and a mismove opened up a gap in the visitors’ defence which they exploited to score an unconverted try.

Just before the break, Edwards added another long-range penalty, to make the halftime score 16-5 to the visitors.

From the restart and now playing down the hill, Moor resumed where they had left off, causing all sorts of problems for the opposition.

The second try came after only a couple of minutes, when Jones scored his second from a pushover and five minutes later completed his hat-trick when from another five-metre scrum, he picked up at the base and bulldozed over, both tries being converted by Edwards.

Any prospect of a rout did not materialise, however, as to Moore’s credit, they successfully stifled further attempts by their visitors and put together some attacking moves of their own.

Moor had to wait until halfway through the final period, when they took full advantage of an opposition player in the sin-bin, to score their fourth and bonus-point try, again from Jones following another scrum near to the home side’s line.

Restored to a full complement, Moore continued their rearguard action and did add to their scoreline with a well-taken converted try, set up from a break by their dangerous open-side wing forward, who then put one of his centres away to touchdown under the posts.

Moor did have the final say, when from the last play of the game, again just short of their opposition’s line, a quickly-taken tap penalty by Edwards found prop Sam Ireland up in support and he dived over and with Edwards adding the conversion, Moor ran out comfortable 42-12 winners.

This was a good all-round performance by Moor and the score could, and perhaps should, have been greater, but for a dogged defensive performance from the hosts who played their part in a full, 80-minute game!

Whilst everyone was involved, special mention should go to the half-back pairing of scrum-half Mike Ingham and Mark Edwards, with the latter’s kicking being immaculate, centre Jack Humpage for his scything runs, especially in the first half and of course, MoM, Ben Jones, whose on-going physio’ treatment is obviously paying dividends!

Next week, Moor begin the second round of this season’s fixtures, with a home game against Ruskin Park, kick off 2.15pm.