Moor lose out in second half powerplay.

Moor hosted Wigton at Green Lane on Saturday and needed to produce a much better performance than the previous week if they were to stand any chance of providing effective opposition to the run-away league leaders; the sort of performance that was evident in the first half when they played against Workington in their preceding home game. As it turned out they did just that, providing a highly riveting and closely fought initial 40 minutes but circumstances were to prevail that denied them the chance of continuing in this vein in the second half.

From the off, it was no surprise that the visitors played to their strength by using their large forwards whenever possible to pick and drive, but the home side was equal to the task and nullified this threat quite well and actually took the lead with a penalty on 10 minutes, kicked by scrum-half Shaun Stirrup. Soon afterwards, the referee issued a general warning to the Moor forwards as he adjudged that they were using illegal tactics in their attempts to withstand the Wigton attacks and as a result, at the next breakdown, lock James McIntosh was sin-binned. The visitors hardly had much time to take advantage of their superiority in numbers however, as within a few minutes they too had a man yellow-carded. Moor appeared to cope with being a man short much better than their opposition and began to cause Wigton a few problems, noticeably with strong runs from their back line; one in particular came from left-winger Chris Ogden-Smith who fielded the ball in his own half and proceeded to power his way up field and was finally tackled into touch a few metres short of the visitor’s try line. Wigton had to wait until being back to a full compliment before resuming the edge in the game and it was on the half-hour mark that they opened their account. Following a series of quickly taken tap penalties the visitors had advanced to the Moor 5-metre line and from a set piece, scrum-half Manihera broke down the blind side to pass to his winger who squeezed in at the corner for a try that went unconverted. Wigton had the chance to increase their narrow lead with a penalty kick shortly afterwards but this was wide and instead it was Moor who arrived at the interval ahead. In injury time, the home side was awarded a penalty on the opposition’s 5-metre line and having coped well in the tight throughout, elected to take a scrum. Not only was this won cleanly but the Wigton pack was shoved back a metre allowing Stirrup to break blind and feed Ogden-Smith who dived in at the corner; the subsequent conversion from the touch line agonisingly bouncing back off the crossbar. An 8-5 lead at half time was just reward for Moor’s all-round team performance. Game on!

Five minutes after the resumption an incident occurred that was to prove Moor’s undoing. McIntosh found himself trapped at the bottom of a ruck, but in the opinion of the referee the former was impeding play and so received his second yellow card, thus meaning that he would take no further part in proceedings. Needless to say, this decision was seen by Moor supporters as extremely harsh, one that would undoubtedly hamper their side’s progress in the game. For ten minutes Moor coped with this handicap, but their woes were increased when player/coach Keith Young was also yellow-carded as the pressure began to tell. Now playing against thirteen men, Wigton took full advantage to score 12 points in the space of five minutes and the game was over as a contest. They further stretched their lead with another try with ten minutes to go, but although a man short, Moor still had not given up and in the closing minutes twice came close to scoring, with one move being held up on the visitor’s try line. The final score of 22-8 to Wigton was a huge disappointment for Moor given their performance in the first half, but they could take much encouragement from the way they stuck to their task when under a huge handicap.