Lancs County RFU Trophy Round 1 - Moor begin season with a win over league rivals Aldwinians.

Heaton Moor vs Aldwinians – 29^th August 2009  

Moor entertained local side Aldwinians at Green Lane last Saturday in the first round of the Lancashire County RFU Trophy competition, a tournament in which they have never progressed past the opening round in their only other two matches in the event. As it was the first match of the season and on a Bank-Holiday weekend, both sides were missing key players, so the outcome was somewhat of an unknown.The Moor side quickly put its stamp on the game however as, on 3 minutes, the opposition fly-half put a speculative kick deep into the Moor 22 which was fielded by full-back Zander Claassen who promptly ran around the advancing defence and sped down the wing to step inside at the last minute to score under the posts, converted by fly-half Shaun Stirrup, making a welcome return to the Moor ranks. Aldwinians recovered from this early setback and forced Moor into conceding three penalties in the next 20 minutes which they successfully kicked to take the lead. Both sides exchanged a further penalty apiece before Moor scored their second try and never relinquished the lead after that. It came in injury time at the interval after prop Jon Jenks had made a break and chipped ahead for lock James McIntosh to collect a rather fortunate bounce, ride a tackle and score under the posts, Stirrup again converting.Turning around 17-12 up, Moor’s lead was cut shortly after the restart by another penalty from the visitors, but this was to prove their last score of the game. Midway through the half a kick ahead by Aldwinians was again fielded by Claassen who, to the surprise of his team-mates and spectators alike, passed to winger Chris Ogden-Smith. This must also have caught the opposition off-guard as a huge gap suddenly opened up and the latter took advantage to sprint up the field and when his chip ahead was mis-fielded by the covering defence, he collected to crash over in the corner, the subsequent conversion just going wide. Aldwinians continued to take advantage of their larger forwards to pressurise the Moor line, but solid defence and two try-saving tackles kept them out. Almost on full-time, the home side found themselves 5 metres from the opposition’s line and following a line-out the forwards were able to drive over for prop Stuart Poole to claim a touchdown, the try again being unconverted. Shortly after this, a third Moor front-row player had to go off due to an injury and this resulted in uncontested scrums. There then followed a bit of controversy as the referee refused to allow Moor another substitution, citing the new “Man Off” regulation that applies to uncontested scrums in RFU league matches and divisional knock-out competitions this season. Despite this handicap, Moor scored another try in the 10^th minute of injury time. This came when the opposition dropped the ball whilst attacking deep in the Moor 22 and Stirrup booted it back up the field for Ogden-Smith to follow up and collect and crash over for his second try in the corner, again unconverted. The final whistle was blown immediately afterwards for Moor to run out 32-15 winners. Although this was a comfortable margin, the main differences between the sides were Moor’s ability to take advantage of their chances and to keep un-enforced errors down to a minimum. This Saturday, Moor opens its league programme with a game at Green Lane against newly promoted Furness, k.o. 3:00 pm.