Sobering end to Moor’s Hoylake trip

MOOR resumed their league programme after a three week lay-off with a trip to the top of the Wirral peninsular on Saturday, where they played Hoylake – their first visit in 11 years to this Cheshire club.

The home side kicked off to the visitors and for the next five minutes Moor kept their opposition under pressure, resulting in a try for full-back Matt Hughes in the corner following a break down the blindside by fly-half Mark Edwards; the latter just failing with the conversion.

The rest of the half belonged to Hoylake however, with Moor very rarely threatening their opponent’s line, as the home side’s mobile forwards kept their opposite numbers wrapped up, providing their back line with an ample supply of ball.

To Moor’s credit, they nullified this threat and it was left to the Hoylake forwards to provide the scoring opportunities. A penalty kick reduced the deficit and it wasn’t until the last ten minutes of the half before the home side went ahead, courtesy of two converted tries. They both came from line-outs on the Moor five-metre line, which produced driving mauls followed by a touchdown, making the interval score 17-5 to Hoylake.

Whatever might have been said at the break must have worked, as Moor upped their game in the second half and had just as much of the play as their opposition. Even losing a man to the sin-bin for an adjudged high tackle early on did not seem to faze the Green Lane side, with Hoylake unable to take advantage of their superiority of numbers whilst he was off.

With both sides effectively cancelling each other out as the half wore on, it was Moor who looked the most likely to break the deadlock, especially when the home side had their own player yellow-carded for a late tackle on the lively Edwards.

With a minute left on the clock, Edwards found a gap to take Moor to within 10 metres of the opposition line where he unloaded the ball to a Moor forward surge just as he was being tackled, only for him to fall awkwardly, twisting his right leg as he did so.

It was immediately apparent that everything was not right with him and the game was halted.

As he was obviously in agony with first-aid assistance around him, the final whistle was blown to bring the game to a premature close with a 17-5 victory to the hosts and a sobering end for everyone.