Magnificent 25 minutes blow Aspatria away

From the off Aspatria had little answer to the powerful running of the Green’s pack, in particular Mark Deans was in fine form pushing off defenders and leaving prone players in his wake. The Black Reds had to commit extra players to stopping the home pack and this gave space out wide to the backs who finished well in the available space. The first try coming from a well placed David Hanabury kick, wide to the right touchline, winger Tom Gardner used clever footwork to deftly kick the ball over the try line and narrowly beat the Aspatria cover to get the touchdown.
It was man of the match Hanabury who scored his first try soon after rounding the tied in visiting defence on the left and he had too much pace to score in the left hand corner. Gregg Smith was able to add the extras giving Wigton a 12 – 0 lead after 10mins. Wigton continued in the same vein with Hanabury scoring a second impressive individual try, and clever play by the ever dependable Chris Pattinson putting Scott Smith away to score. Both of these tries were added to by Smith to leave the score at 26-0 after only 25 minutes.
Wigton have not been in this situation at all this season and perhaps this showed as they conspired to let Aspatria back into the game and spent a good deal of the remainder of the game defending hard. Credit to the Black Reds as they came back very hard, probably understanding that their season could well be at stake, and after making changes came storming back into the game, their forwards got on top at the scrum and they began to attack the Green fringes hard, with both visiting props carrying the ball very well.
Early in the second half winger Gardner was sin binned for a fearsome tackle that most people in the ground felt should have not even been a penalty, but the referee was closest and duly sent him for a 10 minute breather. This gave Aspatria an added boost and proceeded to batter the Wigton try line. However the Lowmoor Road men have been working very hard on their defence recently and are now made of sterner stuff and were able to keep their try line safe during this time, with flanker Andy Brown at the forefront of the defensive rearguard.
Aspatria’s pressure did eventually tell and were able to score a converted try, Wigton did manage from the ensuing kickoff to spend some time in the attacking half put poor decision making meant that Aspatria were able to clear their lines and apply more pressure. Time was not on the side of the visitors and although they pressed hard when they released the ball to their backs they were easily dealt with by the Green backs. Wigton went down to 14 men for the final 10 minutes when Captain Atkinson was sent to the bin for a dangerous tackle and while the tackle looked awkward there was certainly no malice in the challenge. Aspatria did manage to score a try with the final act of the game, which fly half Clegg who had played well all afternoon was unable to convert. The final whistle was again met by jubilation by the home team and the large number of locals who had turned out in force to watch the big derby.
The 5 points achieved by Wigton now put them within a point of Anselmians, who are 1 place ahead of them in the league; the Wirral team did not play on Saturday as a good number of games in that area of the country were postponed. Aspatria are now 6 points adrift at the bottom of the table and will have to battle hard to secure survival. After seeing the turnout at the game on Saturday and the passion on the field hopefully both teams can stay up to ensure that these tremendous derby games continue in the league next year and beyond.