Wirral 42, Sandal 19

WITH both teams in mid-table but Sandal two places above Wirral, this was to prove to be an intriguing game.

Sandal dominated the first nine minutes of the game without Wirral even touching the ball.

With the first phase of possession Wirral established themselves in the Sandal 20m area and after much pressure, wing forward Rob Pearl forced his way over the whitewash to score and converted by James Annetts.

In the next 30 minutes, Wirral ran in three more tries, one being a fortunate ricochet off a Sandal player and scored by Chris Speed.

Captain Craig Harvey forced his way over for the third try and the final try of the half was a superb effort by James Annetts as he broke through the defence and then outsprinted the Sandal cover down the wing.

James Annetts converted all three to give Wirral a 28-0 lead at half time.

The second-half saw Wirral continue where they had left off and added to their score when another James Annetts break was stopped but managed to get the ball away in the tackle to prop Ryan Higginson following up and ran in from 20m to score, again converted.

Sandal, using the wind in their favour, came back into the game and from a penalty five metres out, second row Declan Thompson powered over, the conversion was missed.

The next play of interest was Wirral camped on the Sandal line with numerous thrusts at the Sandal line, a wrong call led to Sandal intercepting the ball and Greg Wood running 80m before cross kicking for Simon Frewin to pick up and score under the posts and duly converted, 35-12 after 70 minutes.

A further try for Sandal was scored by Jack Townend where he used his pace to split the Wirral defence and run in unopposed, again converted.

Wirral were getting concerned as to whether this was a repeat of the game last season at Sandal when the home team came from a long way back to win the game.

However in the final stages of the game, captain Craig Harvey broke through the Sandal defence and raced in from 50m to score, again converted by James Annetts giving him a 100% kicking conversion rate.

The Wirral win of 42-19 was their best performance of the season as the work of the new coach begins to take effect, despite a number of players still not being available.

Wirral have overtaken Sandal and are now sixth in this highly competitive league with their next match being away at high flying Billingham in a fortnight’s time.