Moor completed their season by defending their Lancashire Plate title at Preston Grasshoppers on Monday against Eccles, arguably their toughest opponents home and away in the league this season.

Moor held the early advantage as for the first 20 minutes they had the majority of possession and position. During this period, fly-half Martin Shelley had the opportunity to put Moor into the lead with 2 penalty kicks from far out, but was just short with one and wide with the other. To add to their woes, they lost their dynamic open-side flanker, Ben Tumata, with an injury during this period. It was Eccles who opened the scoring, however, when they kicked a penalty after 25 minutes following their first incursion into the Moor 22. Five minutes later, Moor went into the lead when their top try scorer this season, winger Ivan Smetana, collected a pass off his toes and burst through three tackles to score in the left-hand corner. Moor continued to take the game to their opposition, but suffered another set back with 2 minutes to go to the interval when scrum-half Stephen Kershaw was sent to the sin-bin for repeated infringements.

Moor restarted the second-half with a man short, but this did not seem to hamper them as they continued to have the majority share of possession. The impressive Chris Sutton deputised at scrum-half until Kershaw returned. However, they were unable to get their match-winning back line going due to excellent tackling by Eccles and some poor handling. With play stuck between their 10-metre line and the opposition’s 22, it was full-back Martin Snidal who extended the lead with an opportunistic drop-goal from distance after 20 minutes. Eccles kept the pressure up with another successful penalty kick shortly afterwards, but this was soon cancelled by Shelley with his only success of the afternoon with the boot as he slotted a penalty goal. The final 5 minutes were quite frenetic as Eccles threw everything at Moor, but the Green Lane side stood firm, as they have so often done this season when up against larger forwards, and ran out winners 11-6 to complete a most satisfying double.