Widnes 3rds 17 - Ormskirk 3rds 46
27th October 2007
Ormskirk 3rds travelled to Widnes on the back of three straight league wins, and after a particularly strong performance against Wigan the previous week, were hopeful of another good win. The win they got, the performance on the other hand was less to shout about.
Ormskirk started strongly enough, scoring in the right hand corner only two minutes into the game. From this point however, things were somewhat disorganised and there was a serious lack of continuity between backs and forwards. The Widnes back line looked threatening with the ball in hand although a string of handling errors contributed to a number of missed opportunities for the home side. Ormskirk, on the other hand, handled the ball well and made the most of Widnes’ errors, capitalising on several of their mistakes.
The Ormskirk pack clearly had the upper hand in every area of play from the scrum and lineout to the ruck and maul situation. Some superb lineout work by lock Will Chapman, enabled the ‘Kirk pack to make yardage from catch and drives, however this was spoilt by a lack of communication between the pack and the half backs, resulting in a number of turn overs.
With the game pretty much won by half-time, the Widnes pack tired and Ormskirk continued to have the upper hand despite lacking their usual fire and ‘will to win’. Widnes came back with two late tries due to lacklustre defence by ‘Kirk but it was too little to late for the home side and Ormskirk registered their fourth straight win.
There were some notable performances by Mike Newton who made some strong ball carries and a number of charging runs from No.8 Colin Sinclair. Hooker Neil Ainsworth scored a dazzling try worthy of any centre and stand-in fly half Lee (sorry don’t know your surname) had an excellent game, scoring a couple of tries min the process.
Overall, not a great performance, but still a win. A stiffer challenge awaits next week against LSH, and the thirds will need to sort out their deficiencies if they are to maintain their winning streak.
