Unbeaten run ended by Moor
MOOR hosted newly-promoted Aspull on Saturday and with each side having won both their opening fixtures, it promised to be an interesting encounter.
The visitors were on a winning streak of 28 games, having won all their league matches in the previous season in addition to the two in this.
In the event, it was Aspull who went home emptyhanded as Moor maintained their unbeaten run.
Prior to the game, Moor skipper Danny Child was presented with new playing jerseys by Sue Platt, in memory of her late husband Tony who passed away earlier this year.
Tony had been a huge supporter of the club for many years and in particular the 1st XV, following them both at home and to away games all over the North West. Given the performance that Moor subsequently delivered wearing the jerseys, he would have been justifiably proud of the outcome.
At the start, Moor failed to adequately deal with the Aspull kick-off and the home side were confined deep in their own half.
They eventually produced their own phases of play, which produced a break-out along their back line, resulting in full-back Matt Hughes out-sprinting the defensive cover to score an unconverted try wide out.
Midway through the half, this move was repeated on the opposite side of the field and Hughes again broke through to score his second try. From the restart, Moor drove back up the field and following a series of rucks short of the opposition line involving both forwards and backs, centre Tom Ireland picked up to dive over, with winger Olly Reynolds kicking his first conversion.
Moor again failed to deal with the kick-off, allowing the visitors to launch their own raid which ended with a converted try.
Moor did not let this setback affect their game and they continued to put pressure on the opposition as both forwards and backs continually probed the Aspull defence.
They were rewarded with a penalty in front of the visitors’ posts and chose to take a scrum, allowing No. 8 Ben Jones to pick up and drive over.
The conversion was a formality for Reynolds, but not before Moor had a player sin-binned as the referee adjudged that one of their number had been involved in illegal play in the aftermath of the try.
Despite this, there was still time for another try from Moor, when they were awarded a five-metre scrum and again drove the opposition back, for Jones to once more pick up and dive over, making the half-time score 29-7.
While still playing with a man short at the start of the second half, Moor elected to take a scrum after being awarded a penalty just short of the Aspull line, but this time chose to pass the ball out to the backs, where fly-half Hugues Groshens stepped his man and squeezed in under the sticks, converted by Reynolds.
Returning to a full complement of players, the home side did not release their stranglehold on the game.
From an Aspull scrum near their own line, such was the pressure by the Moor forwards on their opposite numbers that the ball squirted out and replacement flanker Dan McDonagh was first to react as he pounced and dived over, for what proved to be Moor’s last try of the game.
In the last 10 minutes, the visitors did rally and were rewarded with another try following a number of phases of play by their forwards, but it took two missed tackles by Moor to allow Aspull to break through and score wide out.
Perhaps buoyed by this, the final minutes of the game found Moor defending their line, but they successfully preserved their lead.
This was another good all-round performance by Moor, played with intensity and at pace and but for the slight aberration near the end, it was an improvement on the previous week’s performance as the un-enforced error count was noticeably reduced and they played all the way through to the final whistle.
On Saturday, Moor travel to Northwich to play Winnington Park in what will be a top-of-the-table clash between the firstand second-placed teams in the league, kick off 3pm.