Moor finish second best in home league game.

Moor hosted Kirkby Lonsdale last Saturday in what was expected to be an open and close game as the sides finished fourth and third respectively in the division last season and both sides favour flowing rugby. In the event, this was to prove the case with the visitors going away with the spoils.From the kick-off, Moor were under pressure as the lively Kirkby side, marshalled at fly-half by MOM Barton, repeatedly made incursions into the home side’s 22, only to be kept out by good defensive work. Eventually this pressure was to tell after 15 minutes as full-back Zander Claassen was caught in possession 5 metres from his own line and was robbed of the ball which was quickly passed along the visitor’s line for an unconverted try out wide.

Moor reacted to this setback by taking play for the first time deep into the opposition’s half and were rewarded with a penalty in front of the posts, which was kicked by fly-half Shaun Stirrup. The penalty had resulted in a Kirkby player being yellowed-carded for killing the ball, but this did not appear to hamper them as, from the re-start, play ended up just short of the Moor line and the visitor’s forwards won the ball and drove over for another unconverted try. Almost on the half-time whistle, Moor produced their first flowing move of the game when Claassen joined in on the outside of the back line, chipped over the advancing defence, caught the ball and raced over for a try, converted by Stirrup. This made the interval score 10-10 which, given the amount of possession they had had, was quite encouraging for the Green Lane side.

Immediately following the start of the second half, the visitors were back in the lead as the ball was taken down the blind side by their forwards and some extremely poor tackling allowed them to score out wide, again unconverted. Despite this relapse, Moor began to play with a lot more purpose than in the first half and were able to force the opposition into conceding a number of penalties, two of which were kicked by Stirrup, for the home side to take the lead for the first time in the match which lasted up until the final quarter. A penalty on 62 minutes enabled Kirkby to re-take a narrow lead, but the final 10 minutes put paid to any hope that Moor might just sneak a win, as mounting pressure by the visitors produced two tries, one converted. The first followed a number of scrums 5 metres short of the Moor line when Barton squeezed through the narrowest of gaps to score and the second, almost on the whistle, followed a mistake at the back of the Moor scrum and one of the visitors pounced on the loose ball to run in unopposed under the posts for a converted try.

The final score of 16-30 for Kirkby was a deserved win given their dominance throughout the game, but the margin was slightly disappointing for Moor as they had been in contention for most of the match and had only themselves to blame for giving away some soft tries.

This Saturday, Moor travel to Workington, k.o. 3:00 pm.