13th January 2008
ORMSKIRK 13-19 HUTTON
Despite being a friendly fixture, the local proximity of these teams meant Saturday’s match at Green Lane was a tight, hard fought local derby, played in good spirits.
Ormskirk looked to take advantage earlier on and arguably played their best rugby throughout much of the first half. Forwards looked strong, Ben Davies had a big game, and needed to as he had previously played for Hutton. Debutant Alex Lambie performed superbly well at fly-half and managed to kick Kirk into some good territorial positions.
As Kieran Mahood made valuable yards from the back of scrums, aided by Adi Molyneux, Ormskirk edged their way down the pitch. Kirk’s account was opened after some back and forth passages of play, a dummy move in the backs and a sneaky break from John Curly. Stand in Captain Andy Wroe provided the support and scored in the right corner. Despite the conversion miss a penalty boosted the score line, chipped over by full-back Andy Healy.
Not long before the end of the half Kirk added the second and it was Davies who twisted the knife by going over after a superb team input that saw the ball go through at least ten sets of hands.
From the second half two aspects of the game changed. Hutton upped their game and Ormskirk went into their shells. Succumbing to massive forwards pressure Kirk allowed the visitors to score with a strong driving maul, which they had managed to keep at bay in an intense period of about 10 minutes. The added conversion took the score to 13-7.
Ormskirk were able to play some rugby in the opposition half but it seemed that this 40 would be more of a defensive affair. Props; Jones and Gatley led the defence at the sides of break downs, Bennett and Dean put in the tackles around them. However, the home team was caught out when a cross field kick was put in from the back of a ruck. Kirk’s winger Ashworth scrambled back but was out of position whilst Hutton’s winger caught and fell to score their second.
Kirk had more pressure to soak up and the worst case scenario un-folded when Hutton took the lead after another driving maul resulted in a try and conversion.
At 13-19 it was unlikely Kirk were going to win and despite a good run and kick from youngster Luke Parker on his debut, Ormskirk had given away the victory which had taken well by Hutton.
