Following last week's hard fought win against Anselmians, Wirral were faced with a re arranged home game against the impressive Sale, who, like ourselves, look to play open attractive rugby.

Coach, Andy McKinney had made a number of changes to the team, as he rotated players within his first team squad. Matt Brown came in for Chris Hughes at prop. Colin Dyer for Ben Marsh at No 8, with Ollie Atkinson back on the subs bench after skiing activities. Both Ben and Chris were on the bench, with Ryan Harvey playing for the Seconds in their important cup match against New Brighton Seconds.

The first 15 minutes saw territorial advantage to Sale, with Wirral's defence holding out against thrusts from the mobile back division of Sale and with this possession, they scored first with a penalty by their fly half after 15 mins. 0-3.

From the kick off Wirral were able to gain a foothold in the Sale half & although Wirral missed a scoring opportunity down the blind side when the pass went to ground, they did take the lead on 17 minutes when a break from the scrum by scrum half Ian White, who drew the opposition before sending in Ali Baker for a try some 20m from the posts, the try was not converted by Danny Harvey. 5-3.

Although Wirral were now exerting pressure on Sale, the defence was solid until a training ground move (36 mins) saw Dave Doneo score in the corner. Wirral had a line out 10m from the Sale line, when a throw in by Jason Green was caught by Dave running to the front of the line, this caught Sale unawares and Dave scored in the corner, again the conversion was missed.10-3

This was the score at halftime with much of the play being contained between the 22's as both sides probed for openings. Ben Marsh came on for Dave Doneo who had a knee injury and during the first few minutes of the second half, Matt Brown (prop) suffered a hamstring injury and was replaced by Chris Hughes.

With Wirral playing down the "Twickenham" slope they were looking to gain territory and attack the Sale line but to their credit Sale repelled Wirral. A good break from the 22 saw Ben Marsh making valuable ground and unselfishly looked for support instead of making more ground. From this ground gained Wirral were now camped in the Sale half and from a quickly taken penalty the ball went through a number of hands before Chris Hughes on the right wing ran in from a few metres out, despite a number of would be tacklers, to score mid-way between posts and corner, but again the conversion was missed. 15-3

From the kick off the ball was collected by Ross Page and immediately made ground before passing to Rob Pearl and Tim Hodson, who between them made some 40m, only for the referee to penalise for not releasing. A further free kick saw Sale in the home 22 and a quickly taken penalty by Sale saw their scrum half run into Tim Hodson and Tim was yellow carded even though he could not get out of his way. The penalty in front of the posts was converted to leave the score 15-6.

Sale were applying pressure and an upset was on the cards with their one man advantage but relieving kicks saw Wirral escape from their own half and a break by Phil Donaldson and a pass to Ian White, created a scoring opportunity only for Ian to be hauled down some 5 m from the line. Still Sale looked to run the ball from their own half through their impressive fly half and centre but once again the Wirral defence held out. With 5 minutes to go Wirral were awarded a penalty some 35 metres out 10m in from touch and this was converted by Sam Broadbent, much to the relief of the supporters, giving Wirral a 12 point cushion. Final score 18-6.

An entertaining game and credit should go to Sale who endeavoured to play an attacking game throughout.

Wirral lead at the head of the table is maintained at 5 points, but of the remaining 6 games only 2 are at home and thus 3 more victories are required to clinch the league title. Next week, the first team are away at Glossop, if the snow has gone from that area.

Richard McNeil