Five star performance from Wigton

Early pressure from Wigton brought an infringement by a Hawcoat park player giving Gregg Smith an early penalty which he duly converted to give the home side a 3-0 lead after only 2 minutes. In fact the early part of the first half was littered with penalties for both sides and on 12 minutes Gregg Smith increased the Wigton lead to 6-0.

A further penalty to Wigton on 14 minutes was moved on a further 10 metres by the referee but the kick just sailed past the uprights. On 20 minutes a miss pass by the Hawcoat Park defence allowed Richard Moffatt to kick through, the full back miscued the ball and Moffatt continued his run to touch down for Wigtons first try, Smith kicked the conversion and the lead was extended to 13-0.

The next few minutes saw Hawcoat Park with plenty of the ball and from a good passage of play, a two on one situation enabled them to get their first try on the board, the conversion was missed but the score was now 13-5 on 29 minutes. On 36 minutes a pass across the back line by Gregg Smith was cleverly picked up by captain David Hanabury who glided along the touch line beating a couple of defenders along the way to touch down for Wigtons second try, the conversion was missed but the lead was now 16-5.

Within a minute of the second half starting Smith and Hanabury had opened up the Hawcoat Park defence before offloading to Richard Moffatt to score his second and Wigtons third try under the posts. Smith converted and the hosts led 25-5. Once again great handling along the back line gave Moffatt the chance to offload the ball to Smith to touchdown and give Wigton a bonus point try, Smith converted to extend the lead to a healthy 32-5.

Wigton continued to press forward and with the dominance of the scrum allowing the backs plenty of ball only a couple of dropped balls in the Hawcoat Park 22 prevented Wigton from increasing their lead. On 62 minutes an offside decision gave Smith a straightforward penalty to move the score onto 35-5.

However, Hawcoat Park were not lying down and recent high scoring performances have seen them climb to 6th place in the league and two converted tries on 71 and 75 minutes reduced the arrears to 35-19. With a couple of minutes left to play Wigton regained composure and a great offload by Stuart Creighton gave Gregg Smith his second and Wigtons 5th try under the posts, Smith duly converted to increase the score to 42-19.

Even at this late stage Hawcoat Park seized their chance to score a bonus point and with a series of pick and goes, the forwards crossed the line for a 4th try, which was converted to give a final score of 42-26. This was a very entertaining game by two powerful teams with Gregg Smith being the outstanding player for Wigton.