Strong Display By A Weakened Wirral

On a day where the rain was and has been falling heavily along with a strong wind blowing down the field, a weakened Wirral team travelled to play the third placed Macc team. On arriving at the ground there were a number of forks displayed outside the ground which gave an indication of the work needed on the ground to clear up water that was standing. The work was undertaken along with the dead ball area being reduced to a few metres, advised by officials it was still within the legal requirements.
Wirral whilst missing players from recent fixtures were obliged to make further changes from the side selected this week and then again on the morning of the match. JAMES ANNETTS had to pull out through illness and MARK WILLIAMS had to withdraw when we were looking for him to return to the team. As a result WILL SPRIGGS was drawn from the second team (their numbers were therefore reduced) to play on the wing with DAN HARVEY moving to centre. GEORGE BURROWS having now recovered from his knee operation returned to the subs bench. DAN CARROL continued at prop in the absence of JOE ADNAMS.
With MACC being one of the three joint leaders of the league played downfield towards the town end of the ground with the benefit of the wind and rain behind them as they kicked off at 3.00pm The first period of the game saw Macc enjoying the territorial advantage and it was proving difficult to get any ground advantage for Wirral when try to clear to touch. The Wirral team tackled well to hold out this bigger pack. Occasionally Wirral got play into the Macc half but not breaking through the strong defence as much as they tried. After 3 penalties in a row to Macc, the home team had a scrum a few metres out and they went blind which enabled the winger Sam Brown-Mayfield to score in the corner. The conversion was taken 5m further in field from where he scored- the kick was missed. HARRY CROPPER-JOYCE came on for CRAIG DERMODY. Wirral worked their way up-field and put pressure on Macc and were rewarded with a penalty some 20m out, decision taken by Wirral to have a kick at goal against the wind, the ball was kicked high by BEN BROOKS and appeared to miss before curling in to score. A score of 5-3 at half time was a great performance by Wirral given the conditions.
In the 46 th minute, Macc increased their lead when new signing (per commentator) Slim Meek scored close to the posts and converted by Harry Oliver, 12-3 (46 mins). More pressure came from Macc as they tried to press home their advantage however their full back Dan Percival was sin binned for a technical offence. On 57 mins worked their way over for their third try but not converted 17-3. DAN HARVEY was also sin binned for an offence. HARRY WALMSLEY came on for DAN CARROL. In the 66 th minute Macc crossed for their 4 th try and bonus point to the delight of the large crowd following them, it was not converted 22-3.
GEORGE BURROWS came onto the field in the centre when DAN’s sin bin time was completed. When we had chance to clear on a couple of occasions we kicked too far downfield forcing a scrum back to where kicked- not helped by the reduced dead ball area. With 4 minutes to go Wirral were applying pressure on MACC the ball was dropped and a kick ahead led to TOM AKEHURST scoring in the corner, BEN BROOKS from the touchline took the conversion and did this with a superb drop kick, 22-10. IN the final minutes Wirral were tackling well and another dropped pass from MACC saw Wirral kick ahead with no Macc player in front of them and the chance to possibly score but no advantage was given and had to come back to half way line for a scrum in their favour. One minute later this was the end of play but the Wirral supporters had to admire the way in which Wirral had played.
Richard McNeil