Terrific start sees Moor home in Cup

MOOR hosted Oldham on Saturday at Green Lane when they played their second game in the League Cup competition associated with the ADM Lancashire Premier League.

In the first half of the game, Moor arguably played their best 40 minutes of rugby so far this season, with everything going right as everyone expertly performed that which had been learnt on the training ground. Not only were the moves carried out correctly, but the game was played at pace, which had the opposition constantly on the back foot.

The visitors kicked off and immediately Moor went on the attack with slick, accurate passing, ending up after various exchanges with a try by centre Kingsley Child, converted by captain and fly-half Danny Child.

The second try was almost identical, in as many minutes, but this time from the skipper himself, who made a break through the advancing defensive line to touch down under the sticks, giving him an easy conversion.

Moor again scored from the kick-off, this time following a run by right-winger David Adebo and when stopped, illegally as it turned out, the ball was recycled as the referee allowed the advantage to be played and left-winger Jack Humpage crossed for a converted try. As a result of the afore mentioned infringement, Oldham lost a player to the sin-bin and Moor took advantage of this to score their fourth converted try, again by Humpage, to be 28 points up after only 15 minutes.

Only now did the visitors start to get into the game and midway through the half, Moor had their own player yellow-carded and it was Oldham’s turn to profit as they scored a converted try.

Once restored to a full complement of players, the home side resumed their dominance and scored two further tries before the interval. The first was by prop James Brennan and the second came after Moor were awarded a penalty 10 metres out and elected to take a scrum. This was won and Oldham were pushed back towards their own line, where No. 8 Tom Ireland picked up from the base of the scrum to score. At the break, Moor found themselves leading 40-7.

Whether it was due to over-confidence or over-exertion in the first half, Moor fell away in the second period.

Oldham’s first try of the half came following a quickly taken throw-in and the second came from the resultant kick-off as an Oldham player ran through no less than six attempted tackles to score under the posts.

The visitors then did not help their recovery as they had another player yellow-carded and no sooner had this player returned, another was sin-binned. It was only following this second indiscretion that Moor were able to score what turned out to be their final try. Having been camped deep in their opponent’s half for a number of minutes, they were unable to break down some resolute defending by Oldham, but eventually this was breached when an overlap was created for Adebo to dive over in the corner, followed by an excellent conversion from the touchline by Child.

The final minutes of the game were quite frenetic, as Oldham attempted to cut their deficit and were rewarded with a try, following a chip over the advancing Moor defence and then on the stroke of full-time, they claimed another that was perhaps their best of the afternoon, as it involved interplay amongst a number of their players.

There then followed an extended period of extra-time, during which Moor had to desperately defend wave after wave of Oldham attacks, which they fortunately managed to do, ending up 47-33 winners. This was a most absorbing game that swung first one way and then the other and must have left the visitors thinking of what might have been had their indiscipline not let them down.

Next week, Moor play at Aspull in the semi-final of the Lancashire County RFU Plate Competition, kick off 2.15pm.