After all the excitement of getting to last seasons Lancashire Trophy Final, Ormskirk were looking forward to the start of a new season with renewed confidence and vigour .
As usual Ormskirk were suffering from early absentees including second rower Marcus Rylance who is likely to be out for a few weeks with a broken finger and centre Tom Povey who was suffering from a stomach virus.The off season has been busy with regular training sessions and the influx of one or two new players further strengthening an already decent squad. The first opponents to visit Green Lane were New Brighton who we defeated easily last season. The opposition were there bright and early going through their pre-match warm up and it was obvious from their drills and size that this match was not going to be the walk over that many people were predicting.
The game started well for Ormskirk with the forwards dominating the early exchanges. The first try was never far away and after a poor clearance from their full back it was taken nicely first time by Graham Bishop who ran the ball back 40 metres to go over in the corner.Unfortunately ‘Kirk were forced into an early forced change with Pat Lloyd picking up a painful calf injury and unable to continue. Soon after however further ‘Kirk pressure led to a scrum near the New Brighton line. A good push by the lads created good ball for No.8 Olly Hogan to pick up and barge over for the 2nd try. Meanwhile new player Tom Anderson was showing what a useful addition to the squad he will be with a fantastic 50 metre run only to be pulled down about a metre from the line. Shortly after this another scrum near the opposition line led to another pick up from no.8 Olly Hogan who again drove over from a few yards out. New Brighton who had been out played up to this point refused to lie down and brought themselves back into the game just before the break with a cleverly worked quick tap penalty which led to a nicely worked try ending up under the posts and then converted. The half ended with the score :-
Ormskirk 15Â Â New Brighton 7
Ormskirk were keen to put the game out of New Brighton’s reach and started the half by again pushing forward. Eventually the first try of the half came after the ball was moved along the line to who else but Olly Hogan to score his third try of the game. Importantly the try was near the posts which allowed Matt White to score the first Ormskirk conversion of the game. Again New Brighton were not prepared to sit down and allow Ormskirk to walk away with the game and were awarded a penalty try after the lads were caught offside at a penalty after just being warned about the same offence a few seconds earlier. Again this was easily converted from in front of the posts and meant that it was still game on. A few minutes later Ormskirk were unlucky not to wrap the game up wih Graham Bishop going over for a try but was unluckily ruled to have just stepped over the dead ball line. The game was eventually put to bed with a scrum near the New Brighton line. Scrum half Harry James picked up at the base and went round the blind side to go over in the corner, sealing a fine first victory of the new season.
Ormskirk 27 New Brighton 14
After such a long lay off the coaches were pleased with what was a good team performance especially as the first Lancashire cup game is away at Waterloo next weekend.
