After last week’s disappointing defeat by Aldwinians in The Lancashire Cup the under 13s could not have faced a tougher fixture than Sandbach who recently defeated the same team by over 50 points! However the coaches were in a bullish mood believing that the lads in the squad could give a good account of themselves if they were prepared to put the hard work in.
From the kick off it was very apparent that Sandbach were a quality team moving it nicely down the line as well as re-cycling the ball well from both rucks and mauls.Therefore it was no surprise when Sandbach broke well from a scrum near the Ormskirk line and one of their forwards powered over for the first try. The onus was now on the Ormskirk team to get themselves back into the game and look to test the Sandbach resilience . From the kick-off the lads won some decent possesssion and started to ask some questions of the Sandbach defence. Some promising moves were well thwarted by excellent Sandbach tackling but players such as Olly Hogan, Craig Ennis and Marcus Rylance were making a real dent in the opposition’s defence. Even after Ormskirk failed to score superb cover defence by the ever improving Pat Lloyd and full back Matt White kept the opposition out.
Half-time:  Ormskirk  0     Sandbach 5
Ormskirk kicked off the second half buoyed by their first half performance and were quickly into their stride forcing Sandbach into an early knock-on. From the scrum Craig Ennis did one of his barnstorming runs but again excellent defence saw the move come to nothing. At this point mention must be made of the forwards who were competing well against their illustrious visitors and were more than matching them in the set pieces. Sandbach then almost caught Ormskirk napping with a deft little break by their scrum-half but again excellent cover tackling saw the move come to nothing with Robbie Jones eventually relieving the line with an excellent touch line kick. Ormskirk again looked to turn the screw and with ‘Kirk’s pack winning the ball against the head,the ball found its way to centre Tom Povey who beat the defensive cover to go in near the corner bringing the score up to all square, a superb achievment with much cheering from the crowd. With 26 lads down Ormskirk’s coaches were constantly making changes and it was fantastic to see some of the new lads really rising to the challenge of top level junior rugby. Soon Sandbach were charging back into the attack but again superb tackling kept them out. When it looked as if ’Kirk had done enough to keep Sandbach at bay the ball found its way to their big No.8 who drove over from a couple of yards out for their second try and well converted to draw seven points clear. Again Ormskirk didn’t give up and came firing back into the game well typified by Kyle Hoy doing the dirty work and winning excellent ball on the floor amongst lots of flailing boots. Sandbach scored a try with the last move of the game after re-cycling the ball well on the ‘Kirk line and moving it out wide to score near the corner.
Full-time: Ormskirk 5  Sandbach  17
Even in defeat this was possibly the best performance of the season against one of the very best teams in the whole of the North-West. Playing against teams of this calibre can only improve the skill levels of the team and even with frequent substitutions ‘kirk never lost their shape or their appetite for the fight. It was evident that this was a good performance highlighted by the Sanbach coach who came over to offer his support for the team suggesting that if they continue to play like that he couldn’t see them losing again this season, high praise indeed.
