Wilmslow Win at Wigton

Wilmslow came to Lowmoor Road and showed an edge in the set pieces, especially the lineouts, that was enough to deny Wigton the ball for lengthy periods of this game. Neither side made the wisest use of possession, with Wilmslow kicking when they seemed to have overlaps and Wigton far too often kicking to the Wilmslow back three in the middle of the field.

From the outset, Wilmslow looked to kick for territory, but lack of precision in their handling stymied their efforts to post an early score. It was Wigton who created the first scoring opportunity. Centre Richard Moffatt ran a good line from stand off Cory Bouch's short pass. A couple of phases later the ball was passed to veteran David Warwick, making a return to first team action after four years. A fairy tale return to action was foiled when he was bundled into touch in the right hand corner. Wilmslow failed to clear their lines and Wigton won a penalty in the 22 which was kicked by Bouch for a 3-0 lead.

Wigton saw little of the ball and we're stuck in their own half for most of the rest of the half, but a combination of sturdy defence by Wigton and failure to take chances by Wilmslow, kept Wigton's lead till neatly half time. From a lineout Wilmslow found some accuracy with a back move as full back Olly McCall took a short pass to run through between his centres and go under the posts. Bob MacCallum's conversion gave the visitors a 3-7 lead at half time.

The second half started with things in the same vein as Wilmslow had the better of both possession and territory. Wigton did manage to get a maul moving from a lineout, and with the defence on the back foot, Warwick had another run into their 22.

MacCallum produced a lovely piece of skill to conjure up his team's second try. A perfectly weighted high kick was caught by Max Harvey on the left touchline. He had space to step inside and claim the try. The conversion took the score to 3-14, which became 3-17 following a penalty shortly afterwards.

With the game seemingly beyond Wigton, the experienced Tane Manihera entered the fray for the last quarter. He produced a cameo performance to spark a Wigton revival. As he started picking out runners with accurate flat passes on the gain line, Wigton started to gather momentum. He released winger Ryan Clark who showed good pace to break into the 22. His inside pass hit the deck but was gathered on the bounce by Moffatt who crossed the line. Unfortunately referee Denvir ruled the scoring pass forward.

Wigton had their eyes on a score shortly afterwards when a penalty gave them a lineout five metres out, unfortunately they were unable to secure the ball on their own throw. Wigton did have the last word though as they took a quick tap in the Wilmslow 22 and Manihera, with defenders all round him, manufactured a pass for Clark to squeeze in at the corner. That made the score 8-17, but there was no time left for Wigton to threaten the win.

Wilmslow, on the balance of play, deserved the win, whilst Wigton, following last week's performance, will be much happier with their defensive performance.

A word from Coach Malcolm Brown 'Richard Jackson was awarded Man of the Match by local match sponsors Wilde Agriculture whilst there were other impressive performances from Ryan Clark and Fergus Ledingham behind the scrum and an encouraging home debut for 17 year old flanker Josh Nicholson in front of a healthy crowd of 250.

We'd had an excellent response from the lads in training during the week, leading to a big improvement in defensive structures, and a definite improvement in performance but no league points! With 15 games to go and a number of lead players still to return to action I'm still confident we can collect points though.'