Not so long after a tight victory against Broughton Park earlier in the season the Under 13s made the long drive to South Manchester to play them at their ground. As the match kicked off Ormskirk soon took early control with the forwards in excellent form controlling all phases of the game.
As usual Craig Ennis was all over the park making life very difficult for the home team.The first sign of the backs came from a probing run by centre Tom Povey who put in a nice chip kick which had to be hurriedly cleared by the Broughton full-back. From the kick it was nicely picked up by full-back Matt White who rather than play safe attacked through the middle and was eventually only brought down ten metres from the line.Broughton in desperation cleared their lines only for the ball to end up in winger Tom Anderson’s hands who then proceeded to barge through some strong Broughton tackling to score the first try of the game. This seemed to spur Broughton on for a brief period and a good move saw the ball find its way to their flying winger.A try looked a distinct possibility until he was felled by the tackle of the game by Pat Lloyd taking him down low and snuffing out the danger.
The last period of the half saw more pressure from Ormskirk leading to some back to the wall defence by Broughton, just about hanging on for the half-time whistle.
Half-time:  Broughton Park  0  Ormskirk 5
With several absentees it again gave the Ormskirk coaches a chance to give some of the new lads some game time and to ring some positional changes. Ormskirk again started the half in an attacking mode. The forwards again secured good possession at the line-out and the ball was moved along the line to Matt White to outsprint their defence to go in near the corner . This was followed by more Ormskirk pressure with further good runs by Jake Shinner and Tom Anderson testing the resolve of the Broughton defence.However at this point Broughton seemed to get a second wind and a good move saw them knock on just short of the line. From the resulting scrum however Broughton secured the ball and drove the ball over from short range to record their first try of the game. With the conversion missed it left them just five points behind ‘Kirk.
With ten minutes to go it now seemed as if the wind was behind Broughton as Ormskirk looked to be tiring after having so much of the game. Brave tackling repelled the onslaught for wave after wave of attack but just as it looked like a well deserved victory on the road, Broughton managed one last attack and their winger superbly regained his feet after an excellent tackle and went in at the corner.With the conversion missed it meant the game ending in a draw.
Full-time : Broughton Park 10  Ormskirk 10
An ultimately disappointing end to the game which Ormskirk dominated for long periods but reflects the old adage that points on the board win games and it is important to transfer possession into tries. On a positive note there was a real fire about the team today and this was reflected in the quality of tackling on display. In addition the display of several players today will give the coaches selection headaches, particularly for Lancashire Cup games. Hopefully this competition for places will ensure that players will have to perform to their best in every game and will constantly drive up the level of team performance as the weeks go by.
