Heaton Moor welcomed Kirkby Lonsdale to Green Lane on a warm and sunny Saturday afternoon for a league fixture which would provide Moor with a benchmark for their progress since their last sojourn in this division. Kirkby, with two victories under their belt, were one place above Moor at the start of the day and the convincing win at Upper Eden last weekend had given Moor confidence in their ability to get something from the game. 

This confidence was apparent from the kick off as Moor thundered into action with a succession of penetrating breaks and slick handling. The hosts were quicker to the breakdown and recycling possession well – one notable passage of excellent support play saw prop Jenks clear out a ruck following a super break from Martin Snidal. Fly half Shelley missed his first attempt at a penalty goal from a good 45 metres as Kirkby were penalised for going to ground over the ball at the ruck.

Shortly afterwards, wing Zander Claassen gathered his own clever chip just inside the Kirkby half and off-loaded in the tackle to Silva who popped to the eager Jenks having been tackled himself. Moor won the ruck and released Snidal in midfield to weave and fend his way over the try line beneath the posts. Shelley converted easily to give Moor a 7-0 lead after 8 minutes play.

Moor’s defence was very tight in midfield despite some strong running from the Kirkby backs, especially the fly-half who was looking dangerous on the break. On 13 minutes, Moor kicked a penalty to touch after a Kirkby player did not release the ball at the tackle. The lineout on the 22 as won and Shelley orchestrated a run-around move to fire a long ball to Claassen on the left wing. Claassen stepped inside and set up a fast attck which culminated in centre Petr Stourac scoring wide out on the left after some very controlled inter-passing. Shelley struck the conversion sweetly to give Moor a 14-0 lead.

This stung Kirkby into action when it looked like Moor might take a stranglehold on the match. A drive into the Moor 22 resulted in a penalty. It looked like Moor had cleared the danger but the Kirkby fly half counter-attacked with pace and power to score on the right wing. The conversion was missed and Moor now led 14-5. Moor had to soak up more pressure as Kirkby continued to up their game and only stout tackling prevented another score from a lineout on the Moor 5 metre line.

The visitors entered a purple patch which was to endure for the last 20 minutes of the half. They were now marauding with pace and intensity and retaining possession and territory through superior support play and awareness. The visitor’s second row charged down a clearing punt from what appeared to be an off-side position and gleefully registered a try for his efforts. The conversion was missed but with 5 minutes of the half remaining, Moor’s lead had been cut to 14-10. 

Moor’s quick lineout in their own 22 saw Butcher launch a 50 m bomb into Kirkby territory – the bounce defeated him in attempting to gather his own kick and Kirkby countered. A fly-hack and lucky bounce for the visitors saw them register another converted try just to the left of the posts to take the lead 14-17. Moments later, and 3 missed tackles on the Kirkby number 4 saw him slam-dunk a try under the sticks for another converted try. 14-24 to Kirkby, but the half was not yet finished. Shelley was sacked ttempting another indecisive run-around and the ball bobbled loose to Kirkby. The counter-attack resulted in what looked to be a certain try until Silva saved the home-team with a superb tackle 5 metres from his own line. Moor won the scrum and cleared their lines, relieved to hear the blast of the whistle for half time.

Moor needed to start the second half with some impact, and they did. Another great break from Martin Snidal saw the final pass knocked-on with only the fullback to beat. After 46 minutes Kirkby’s superior pace and support play brought another try wide on the left wing. At 14-29 the game looked gone and Moor had few answers to the power of the visitors.

Jimmy Hine in the back row had competed for every scrap of possession and gained Moor a penalty for his persistence. McIntosh caught the resulting lineout and Moor set a superb maul resulting in a drive-over try for prop Joe James. The conversion was missed but Moor clawed back the deficit to 10 points at 19-29. 

The home side looked spent of energy and were now queueing up to miss tackles as Kirkby again applied the power. Scrum-half Silva again made a last-gasp tackle to deny the opposing wing a try and Moor inched back up towards Kirkby territory. Silva spotted an open narrow side and chipped from the base of a ruck. Kirby cleared under pressure and Snidal countered with guile resulting in a recycle from which player-coach Keith Young registered an unconverted try bringing the score to 24-29, raising the hopes of a come-back for the home support. Shortly afterwards, the come-back looked a certainty as Moor sped into the visitors’ 22 with the defence in disarray. For some reason, Stourac chose not to use his 2 man overlap and was tackled, knocking on in the process.

Moor had several opportunities to score, the best being a 2-on-1 five metres from the line when Hine failed to gather McIntosh’s pass with the line at his mercy. Moor were now not getting any run of the ball and were making simple errors as they tried to get back into the game. Kirkby pounced on every mistake and seemed to make a habit of converting every half-chance into points, scoring a further three tries from clever support play, opportunism and aggressive running. With Moor pressing the visitors line but failing to breach the defence, the final whistle blew leaving the score 24-44 to Kirkby. Their victory was deserved and Moor will rue their missed tackles and inability to score having created a number of first-class opportunities. Moor will look to improve the intensity and work-rate off the ball as well as their organisation in defence before their league encounter away at Keswick next week.