Away win lifts Moor to second
SOUTH LANCS/ CHESHIRE 2 TYLDESLEY .................... 22 HEATON MOOR ............. 41
MOOR travelled away last Saturday when they played Tyldesley at the latter’s St George’s Park base, eager to continue their encouraging start to their league campaign.
They welcomed back centre Chris Ogden-Smith for his first league game of the season, which meant that Tom Ireland could resume in his more accustomed role of wing-forward.
Moor kicked off and soon had their opposition on the back-foot, following a quickly taken penalty by scrum-half Ben Haspell. This led to another, which was kicked to touch and the resultant lineout was won by Moor, who set up a drive and ended up with hooker Craig Buckley scoring, the conversion being kicked by fly-half and skipper Danny Child.
For the next quarter of an hour it was the home side who had most of the play, utilising their larger forwards to try and batter their way through the Moor defence.
But it was Moor who next scored following a break by No. 8 Ben Jones who took play deep into Tyldesley’s territory and when stopped, Child was up in support to continue the run. When he was adjudged to have been halted illegally, he successfully kicked the ensuing penalty.
Despite continuing to have a slight edge in the possession stakes, Tyldesley were unable to make much of an inroad into their visitor’s line and whenever play broke down, it was the Moor forwards who dominated the set-pieces, especially the lineouts.
Nevertheless, Moor did not help their cause with just over 10 minutes of the half remaining when Ogden-Smith was sinbinned for kicking the ball away at a breakdown.
During his departure, the home side opened their account with an unconverted try in the corner after stretching the Moor defence.
The kick-off following this score was not fielded cleanly by Tyldesley, however, handing a scrum to Moor and this produced a number of phases of play by the visitors, ending up with another scrum on the home side’s five-metre line. This was won and Moor proceeded to push their opposition back over the try line, where Jones touched down followed by another Child conversion.
In injury time at the break, Tyldesley did reduce their deficit with a well-taken drop-goal by their fly-half, as Moor took a 17-8 lead into the second half.
Soon after the restart, Moor increased their lead when they won a lineout and proceeded to drive the opposition some 20 metres back to the try line, for Jones to score his second try, converted by Child. This seemed to spur the visitors on as they took control of the game for the next 20 minutes and scored two more unconverted tries.
The first followed a clean break by Ireland, which was then taken on by centre Alex Tupou and finally by replacement scrum-half Mike Ingham.
When the latter was stopped, replacement prop James Brennan was on hand to pick up and crash over.
The second followed a lineout which was shipped along the back line. Full-back Matt Hughes joined at pace to slice through the cover and score out wide.
With the game now apparently won, Moor took their foot off the pedal and allowed Tyldesley back into contention and it was the home team’s turn to produce two unanswered scores, with the first one being arguably the best of the match.
This came from a back move from within their own half and, following several interchanges, the last one being especially slick, a try was scored under the sticks.
Shortly afterwards, they won a lineout deep in the Moor half, ran the ball along their back line and some poor tackling from Moor allowed another score under the posts.
With both tries being converted, Moor’s lead that had once been well over 20 points, was now down to only 12.
This did not last for long however, as a clearance kick by Tyldesley was charged down and the loose ball was picked up by Brennan to score his second try, converted by Child.
The last few minutes were played out with Moor again on the offensive and the final whistle brought an end to the proceedings with a 41-22 win to Moor.
With other results on the day favouring them, it meant Moor moved into second place in the division. Next week, Moor play in a top-of-the-table clash when they entertain league leaders Trafford MV at Green Lane, kick off 3pm.