Moor played at Eccles last Saturday in the penultimate league game of the season as champions of North Lancashire 1, having secured the title two weeks previously and determined to continued their unbeaten run. Nevertheless, this game had always been seen as perhaps their most difficult away fixture of the season, having only beaten their opponents at Green Lane earlier in the season by a single point in the last 5 minutes. Likewise, Eccles were no doubt eager to avenge this result and inflict upon Moor their first defeat.

Moor started with a very strong wind at their backs and were quickly on the offensive as the home side failed to adequately deal with the kick off. This resulted in a couple of scrums inside their 22, and from the last of these, scrum-half Felipe Silva delicately chipped over the top and beat the cover to the touchdown, fly-half Martin Shelley converting. Moor continued to take advantage of the conditions to put Eccles under considerable pressure and five minutes after the opening score, they were forced into conceding a penalty some 40 metres out, which Shelley kicked with ease. Having conceded these early points and playing into the strong wind, Eccles took a while to get into the game and it wasn’t until well into the half before they started to cause Moor a few problems. The Green Lane side dealt with these however and long kicks by both full-back Martin Snidall and centre Jamie Haynes, aided by the wind, kept their opposition pinned back. Despite this advantage, it wasn’t until injury time at the interval that Shelley kicked another penalty to make the score 13-0 and leaving the Moor supporters wondering whether this would be a big enough lead to defend.

The second half proved to be an almost identical scenario to the first as Eccles used the conditions to their advantage and had Moor under pressure for long periods. The latter defended extremely well however, a feature of their play all season and one that has been fundamental to their success. Moor were forced into conceding a number of penalties and 2 of these were kicked within the first 15 minutes to reduce the deficit to 13-6. The home side came within a whisker of equalising when their ever lively scrum half managed to squeeze through the defence, but to the great relief of Moor players and supporters, the ball slipped out of his grasp just as he was about to touch down. With this let-off, Moor rallied and came back into the game and with 10 minutes to go, Shelley kicked his third penalty, which seemed to knock the steam out of the home side and play was then confined to the middle of the pitch until the final whistle as Moor ran out 16-6 winners. This was a most satisfying result for Moor and again brought out their fighting sprit that has been called upon on a number of occasions this season. The game could be a dress-rehearsal to the Lancashire Plate final as Eccles are one of the possible other opponents for Moor, once the delayed second semi-final is played.

Next Saturday, Moor are hosts to Windermere at Green Lane in the final league match of the season, k.o. 3:00 pm, and look favourites to end with a remarkable 100% record.