With Winter just around the corner and facing a very wet Green Lane pitch the under 14s welcomed visitors Sedgley Park this weekend. Sedgley were very keen to put up a good display to make amends for their semi-final defeat by ‘Kirk in last season’s Lancashire Plate. With this being the first weekend of half-term there were several absentees and ‘Kirk were down to a squad of just 18 players with the coaches having to shuffle the team with certain players being asked to play in unfamiliar roles. However as the squad has strength in depth no one was unduly worried and again this provided an opportunity for players on the fringes of the squad to show the coaches what they could do.
Sedgley kicked off and a low bouncing ball led to an early Ormskirk knock on.The early stages of the game were quite scrappy with the greasy ball being spilled by both sides. Sedgley looked useful in the early exchanges but a thundering tackle by Kyle Hoy led to ‘Kirk’s first promising attack but Sedgley defended their line well.Sedgley were awarded a penalty as ‘Kirk were caught out holding onto the ball on the floor and managed to clear their lines. Ormskirk however soon recouped the ball after a superb tackle by Olly Hogan led to panic in the Sedgley defence. The ball eventually found its way to Harry James who straightened his run well and sliced through a stretched Sedgley defence to score the first try of the game. From the kick off prop Arron Waggoner set up a good ‘Kirk attack.Robbie jones playing at scrum half today put through a probing kick which was well picked up by Olly Hogan who drove through to score with Tom Povey adding the extras.From the kick off it was not long before Ormskirk once again attacked the shell shocked Sedgley defence and a great run by Arron Waggoner saw him going over for his first try of the game.From the kick off Sedgley finally managed to find some decent territory and soon had an attacking scrum near the ‘Kirk ‘22′ but again good work saw Ormskirk clear their lines with a powerful run by Craig Ennis.From a scrum Sedgley were penalised and this led to the ball being moved out wide for winger Graham Bishop to go over in the corner to leave Ormskirk in a strong position at the end of the first half.
Half-time: Ormskirk 22  Sedgley Park 0
Sedgley started the second half in a far more determined mood and were soon creating problems for the Ormskirk defensive line.However Ormskirk won a scrum near the half way line and the ball found its way to Tom Povey who showed the Sedgley defence a clean pair of heels as he scorched his way down the wing to go in for a try. It is fair to say that after this Sedgley played some of their best rugby of the game and were unlucky not to score when they just went into touch with the line at their mercy. Shortly after this they were again denied a try when, with the line at their mercy, the ball was knocked on. Ormskirk were having to put in a lot of tackles at this stage and some were unfortunately a little high and eventually referee Jones had had enough and flanker Kyle Hoy was dispatched to the sin-bin for ten minutes. Ormskirk ended the game with a bit of a flurry after a superb break out of defence by Craig Ennis set up a good attacking platform but Sedgley were in no mood to ship another try and worked hard to keep the opposition out.
Full-time: Ormskirk 27  Sedgley Park 0
With a depleted squad this victory again showed the strength in depth of the under 14 squad in beating what was a good Sedgley Park team.
