EDF Energy Senior Vase Competition Round 1

Moor opened its season last Saturday with a first round home match in the EDF Energy Senior Vase competition against Liverpool Collegiate and the early exchanges highlighted the rustiness of both sides as numerous handling errors were evident, a situation that continued throughout the game. Nevertheless, Moor proved to be the better side and eventually ran out 23-12 winners.

Collegiate conceded 2 penalties within the first 5 minutes and the second of these was kicked by fly-half Martin Shelley to open the scoring for Moor. The home side continued to press, but a miss-timed pass went to ground and one of the opposition’s centres gathered the ball to race 40 metres to score under the posts, but astonishingly the conversion was missed. This proved to be the only time during the game that Moor was behind and within 3 minutes they had retaken the lead as the ball was quickly passed along the three-quarter line for right-winger Nick Hawke to score in the corner, Shelley missing the conversion. Moor scored twice more before the interval with an unconverted try from player/coach Keith Young in the opposite corner to the first and a penalty kick by Shelley, with the Green Lane side taking a comfortable half-time lead 16-5.

From the re-start, the visitors moved up a gear and for the first time in the game the home side had to work hard on its defence and midway through the half, Collegiate reduced the deficit with a converted try following a series of penalties that Moor was forced to concede. Moor eventually reasserted its dominance and following a free-kick 10 metres from the opposition line, the ball was cleanly recycled through numerous pairs of hands for No 8 Nick Smith to crash over for a try, converted by Shelley. In the final 5 minutes, Moor had numerous opportunities to stretch the lead but was still plagued by handling errors and on 3 occasions, the ball was first knocked on, then dropped and finally and most incredibly, was passed forward when over the try line!

Despite this error-strewn game, Moor progressed through to the next round on October 13^th and can only improve for the opening league game against Burnley this coming Saturday at Green Lane, k.o. 3:00 pm.

David Todd