Ormskirk visited Heywood Road the former home of Sale Sharks and clearly the finest ground in the league , for their game against Sale. Having lost their last two league matches they were looking to get back to winning ways, but were not helped by the number of senior players either not available or injured.
They kicked off and won the ball immediately, taking the game to Sale. The introduction of Pope to the front row stabilised the scrum and enabled Ormskirk to dominate the early exchanges, causing the Sale forwards to give away a penalty just inside their own half which Armstrong converted. Further pressure resulted in Sale losing position and loose ball was hacked forward by Andy Wilson who then outpaced the defence before deftly controlling the ball over the line and touching down for a try which Armstrong converted. Sale reduced the deficit following a transgression by Ormskirk.
Armstrong restored Ormskirks 10 point lead with a further penalty as Ormskirk continued to control the game. However, disaster fell just 5 minutes before half time when Ormskirk conceded 2 tries in 4 minutes due to in-experience and some missed tackles, and to make matters worse they lost Luke Parker with leg injury. Armstrong reduced the arrears to one point at half time with a long range penalty, but the half time score of 16-17 was a poor reward for their general play.
They began the second half as they started the first, harassing Sale in all parts of the field and while not looking like scoring a try restored their lead with 2 further penalties by John Armstrong. The followed another 5 minutes of madness when they conceded 2 tries following basic errors and missed tackles to let sale take a 29-22 lead. Ormskirk tried to force the game and in doing so gave away penalties which allowed Sale to close the game off at 35-22 despite Ormskirks best efforts.
This was a poor reward for their performance over the whole game, during which there were many plusses, but they must learn to be smarter and keep their concentration and then winning times will surely return. Ormskirk will be looking to bounce back when they play host to Hoylake this Saturday at Green Lane, 2:30pm kick off.
