Early pressure quickly paid dividends with a try after 8 minutes as an overlap gave Ivan Smetana the chance to show his paces on the wing before touching down under the posts, leaving Martin Shelley with an easy conversion. Moor doubled their lead on the quarter hour from a 5-metre scrum, the ensuing rolling maul forcing Nick Griffiths over, with Shelley converting. They then squandered a couple of scoring chances with the line at their mercy. Ashton cut the margin with a forward surge from a line-out for an unconverted try, but a sniping run by Felipe Silva from a scrum on his own 22-metre line saw him evade a number of touchline tacklers before cutting inside, Shelley converting. This was followed by excellent inter-passing between Smetana and Nick Smith which ended with the former touching down for Shelley to convert. With minutes of the half remaining, the visitors pulled one back with a try in the corner from a blind-side break.

18 points ahead at the restart, Moor showed how England lost from a winning position. Ashton forced their way over from a close-range line-out for a converted try after 10 minutes, but another blind-side break by Silva restored the margin. In the final quarter, a combination of over-elaboration and wild passing into a strong wind prevented a larger margin. A powerful 40 metre mid-field break by Phil Thomas saw the final pass go to ground. Trying to run the ball out of defence, the dropped ball was snapped up by Ashton to score near the posts.

For their visit to the other Ashton (-under-Lyne) in this Saturday’s league fixture, Moor must aim to repeat their fast, attacking style of the first half, but bring more discipline to their overall performance.