Moor mistakes cost the game in dour battle at Spartans.

It wasn’t exactly Oklahoma – there was no “Bright golden haze on the meadow”, in fact it was all one could do to see through the spray on the M60 on this dull, rainy, windy, Lowry day. It didn’t improve much at Spartans ground – those past visitors to Salians will remember with fondness the dungeon changing rooms and the trek across the road to the local park – proper rugby!   Things didn’t look much better on the pitch (which was in remarkably good condition considering the meteorological state of the day), where there were some outbreaks of dog shit – the sight of Rick Lindsay trying to poke a turd into a toilet roll holder with a spent rocket stick from bonfire night will remain with me to my dying day; and what a place to suddenly ‘out’ yourself as a turd burglar… nice one, Rick!

Moor, with the wind at their backs, began the game with conviction and soon had the upper hand, forcing the home side to play from deep inside their 22. Colts skipper, Tom Ireland, was immense in making many tackles around the park. A flurry of breaks eventually brought an infringement and Jaz sand-wedged the penalty to give Moor a 3-0 lead.

This only served to spur Spartans on, and they began to exert pressure in the scrummage and loose play to push deep into the Moor half. A lineout to the visitors (from a penalty infringement) saw the home side catch and drive, ultimately to cross the line and register 5 points. Moor reacted positively and again forced Spartans back deep for long passages relieved only by desperate kicks to touch.

One such kick failed to reach touch, and Danny ‘Rat Pack’ O slid onto the loose kick (like the England soccer goalie Carson SHOULD have the other night – everything behind the ball) – gathered and got to his feet in one movement – pure ballet! He then stepped infield and turned on the gas, breezing past a few lunging tackles and, keeping the support on his right, continued to burst into gaps to cross the line to score a fine individual try. Jaz converted and Moor looked good for the lead. Moor took advantage of another infringement and Jaz slotted another 3-pointer from in front of the sticks to give Moor a decent lead at half time.

The second half turned into an error-strewn affair for the visitors, not aided by some one-sided refereeing. The replacements (and there were hundreds of them – almost Zulu Dawn proportions) Spartans players made an immediate impact in the second half as a weak clearing kick from Sq.Ldr. Heath was grasped by the left wing who literally waltzed through four Moor players to score to the left of the sticks. An irate skipper reprimanded his would-be tacklers by shrieking, “There’s no point going at them with your handbags!”, whereupon the Spartans kicker said, “We’ve got 15 with handbags… he he hee!”.

The rest of the half was very scrappy from Moor. Danny 'O' left the field with a re-arranged nose and we missed his incisive running - he's ok by the way - had it reset in hospital. Lindsay came on to replace the ever-injured Grimsley and made some serious runs immediately. Tiny Goodwin entered the fray and the scrum suddenly became more stable... surpise surprise! Four decent breaks saw Moor gaining brilliant advantages only for the final pass to be poor or dropped. Normally, Moor would have converted at least one of these opportunities into points, and the match would have been won. However, it was not to be, and Spartans, playing with passion and resolve, forced Moor to play from deep. It was one of those days, albeit disappointing, where Moor should have done better.

Congratulations to the Spartans for winning 6 in a row – they deserved victory at the end of the day.