Ormskirk 2nd XV 27 – Burnley 2nd XV 5
A horrible trend that ‘The Raiders’ will have to try and buck is the way they start their matches this season. With last week’s poor performance fresh in everybody’s minds the home team prepared to face their latest opposition – Burnley - at fortress Green Lane. Within a minute of kicking off Burnley had caught their own kick, broken through a number of tackles and crossed the line to score an early try, putting the conversion well wide of the posts. Whilst regrouping behind their posts after this early shock, ‘kirk decided there and then to dig deep and take the game to Burnley.
From the restart every one of Ormskirk’s 15 players - both powerful forwards and skilful backs - started to work for each other and play quality rugby. The forwards rumbled the ball onwards with great success for a number of phases and supplied the backs with clean quick ball to bamboozle their opposite numbers with their pace and rugby prowess. Ormskirk’s first try came early on in the first half as an opportunity presented itself which the forwards felt was too good to miss. A powerful eight man maul formed and gained yards aggressively, crushing the opposing players and with an effort from the whole pack, veteran tight head Paul Blackwood grounded for a great try.
The whole second team this week play well and their victory was very well deserved, the pack with players returning from injury, and a good blend of youth and experience played a particularly strong, solid and uncompromising game. With some rock-hard scrums and even harder tackling, The Raiders gave the huge crowd lots to cheer about. The backs also excelled themselves in their dynamic attacking rugby football, at time the backline showed great tempo and some brilliant examples of accurate passing. The nine-ten combination of Tom Hopley – Lord Roger Spence worked particularly well and lead to Gordon, Staniforth and Karne all crossing the line with fine examples of how to score quality tries.
In summary, every man on the field including substitutes played to their strengths and achieved every thing that was asked of them. The backs played very well and the forwards played a very powerful, physical game. All the players played for one another and proved the old saying true, that “there is no I in team.†This week’s game was a showcase for the potential of the ‘kirk’ second team and to prove the critics of past weeks wrong, even the normally serious head coach Phil Harland was seen smiling at full time!
