Moor squeeze two points from neck and neck contest.

Moor played hosts to Whitehaven-based St. Benedicts at Green Lane last Saturday and as a newly promoted side they were somewhat of an unknown quantity, although their results so far suggested that it would be a tough encounter. In the event, this proved to be the case and for most of the game there was never more than a single score between the sides.

As early as the sixth minute, Moor took the lead from a Shaun Stirrup penalty and this was doubled midway through the half with another Stirrup penalty. From the restart, the home side was penalised and the visitors took advantage of this to open their account with a penalty of their own. They were awarded another penalty shortly afterwards but as it was some way out they chose to run it and from a speculative kick over the advancing Moor defence, full-back Zander Claassen collected the ball and proceeded to jink his way back down the pitch and eventually squeezed in at the corner for what was to prove to be the first of Moor’s four tries in the game, the conversion being missed by Stirrup. Ten minutes later, St. Benedicts scored an unconverted try which came from a blind-side move following a series of rucks which had kept the home side forwards tied in and deep into injury time at the interval, they kicked another penalty to level the score at 11-11.

From the restart, Moor seemed to up their work-rate and when an attack by Claassen was halted, the ball was quickly recycled along the three-quarter line for centre Nick Smith to crash over, the conversion going just wide. The visitors kept in the hunt with another successful penalty kick before Moor scored their third try. This came from a line-out 5 metres from the visitor’s try line and from the subsequent ruck, lock Ben Jones picked up and drove over to score, again unconverted. Not to be outdone, St. Benedicts scored their second try shortly afterwards, again from a line-out, but this time the ball was successfully mauled to within 5 metres of the Moor line and then spun along their back line for a score in the corner. Moor’s final try came with fifteen minutes still to go when after a number of rucks, the ball was taken down the blind side and Claassen joined the line to squeeze in at the corner. The visitors had the final say with another penalty and the last ten minutes were played out with no further score as Moor ran out 26-22 winners.

Although this was a welcome win after two successive defeats, Moor were once again guilty of conceding too many penalties whilst easily outscoring the opposition in the try department and so allowed their opponents to keep in the hunt; fortunately this week they managed to hang on to their lead.