Moor lose out after poor second-half performance.

Moor travelled to Fleetwood on Saturday for a re-arranged league game and hopeful of doing the ‘double’ over the opposition, as they had a comfortable win against them at Green Lane back in November. The early exchanges certainly suggested that this might be the case, as from the kick-off Moor were camped in the home side’s half and repeated attacks by them, especially from their lively back-line, were only just halted by Fleetwood. Ironically, it was as a piece of luck that lead to Moor’s opening score after 15 minutes. Fly-half Martin Shelley chipped ahead and the ball fortuitously hit one of the goal-post’s uprights and bounced back into the arms of winger Nick Hawke who crashed over for a try, converted by centre Martin Snidal.

Moor extended their lead 5 minutes later when the ball was passed quickly along their backs and winger Ivan Smetana outpaced the cover to score in the corner, the attempted conversion going just wide. Although Moor dominated for a further 10 minutes, Fleetwood began to get into the game and following two failed penalty attempts, finally opened their account with a third attempt on 35 minutes. This seemed to spur them on and they were rewarded with an unconverted try in injury time at the interval, to make the score 12-8.

The second half was a complete reversal of the first, as Fleetwood upped their work rate and put Moor under intense pressure, but not before the latter extended their lead, much against the run of play. The home side were attacking deep in the Moor half, when they dropped the ball and Hawke picked up and raced down the pitch, linking up with Snidal and full-back Chris Ogden-Smith and when stopped, their back row were there to win the next phase and provide No.8 Keith Young with an unconverted try. That was to prove to be Moor’s last score and their game-plan all but fell apart. Weak tackling and decision-making allowed the home side to dominate proceedings and it was only poor handling and finishing by Fleetwood that prevented them from taking full advantage. They did score an unconverted try wide out midway through the half and followed it up with a penalty with just 10 minutes to go, to reduce the deficit to 1 point. There then followed a frantic rear-guard action by Moor to save the match and it appeared that they might just do it, but in the 8^th minute of injury time, the home side squeezed in for the winning try in the corner, to make the final score 21-17 to Fleetwood.

This second-half performance was by far and away Moor’s worst for some time and they will certainly have to improve upon it as next week they are away at league-leaders Vale of Lune, k.o. 3:00 pm.