Moor Edge Tense Thriller to become Lancashire Plate Champions!

Heaton Moor completed their season on a high note when they defeated Tarleton 16-13 in the final of the Lancashire Plate competition held at Fylde RFC on Bank Holiday Monday. Having narrowly lost the same final only 2 seasons previously, Moor players and supporters were hoping that lightning would not strike twice! In the event it did not, but a closely fought contest saw the lead change hands several times and the outcome was in the balance right to the end. Having lost to Tarleton twice in the league this season, albeit narrowly on the second occasion, Moor knew all about their opponents, especially the larger mobile pack but were confident that they had the beating of them in the back division. And so it proved to be. Whenever the opportunity presented itself, Moor attempted to play an expansive game constantly causing problems through their back division, whereas Tarleton tended to keep the ball amongst their forwards, relying on rolling mauls following scrums and line-outs.

Moor failed to take the lead with two long-range penalties in the first 10 minutes, but were rewarded shortly afterwards when captain and scrum-half Shaun Stirrup was successful with his third attempt. On the half hour, Tarleton opened their account with an unconverted try from a rolling maul following a line-out on the Moor 5-metre line. The mid-Lancashire side continued to press, but poor handling in their back division put paid to a number of these attacks, and from one such turnover, full-back Zander Claassen was put away and but for a finger-tip tackle by his opposite number, he would have scored a try under the posts. Moor did retake the lead just before half-time however, with another Stirrup penalty and led 6-5 at the interval.

Shortly after the restart Tarleton went ahead again from a penalty kick, but Moor then stepped up a gear with some of the forward rucking being outstanding, allowing the back division to cause problems and put the opposition under pressure. Moor won a 5-metre scrum from one of these plays and No. 8 Nick Smith picked up and passed to left-wing Felipe Silva on the blind side who scored in the corner. Moor celebrations were short-lived however, as the touch-judge inexplicably adjudged him to have grazed the corner flag on his way over and so the referee disallowed the try. This incident lead to Stirrup being yellow-carded and the kicking duties were taken over by fly-half Martin Shelley who regained the lead for Moor with a penalty. Further indiscipline lead to another Moor player leaving the field and Tarleton took full advantage of this two-man superiority to score their second try from another rolling maul following a line-out, which they again failed to convert. With just 3 minutes remaining, Stirrup, now re-instated, pounced on a Tarleton mistake and fed Silva who raced 60 metres to score what proved to be the winning try in the corner, with Stirrup converting from the touchline. A nail-biting 4 minutes of injury time followed, but Moor held out to win their first-ever county cup competition. Full praise must go to all 22 players in the squad and especially MOM and player-coach Keith Young.

David Todd