Lymm 23, Wirral 34

WITH coach Darren Hall having a full squad to select from, Wirral went onto put in a five-star performance in the away derby game at Lymm.

Given a good platform by the forwards, the backs with captain, Craig Harvey marshalling play from fly-half Wirral were able to exploit the home team defences.

Having had a try disallowed as being held up over the line at the first scrum, the first try came after eight minutes when a half break by Craig put in Chris Crowley to score under the posts with James Annetts converting.

The second try came in the 12th minute when a clearance kick was charged down and Tom Parry had the easy task of picking up the bouncing ball and scoring.

Lymm got on the scoreboard with two penalties from Cormac Nolan.

At this stage Wirral lost Danny Harvey to a high tackle, which resulted in him leaving the field injured and the offender escaped with a yellow card, everyone though it should have been the other colour.

Lymm had opportunities to score; dropping the ball with the line at their mercy but the Wirral defence then remained solid.

In attack, Wirral were making the necessary ground and another astute pass enabled Chris Speed to break the home defence to score under the posts, duly converted to leave the score 9-19 at half time.

Playing down the slope in the second half, Wirral soon gained their try bonus point through Craig Harvey following a good break by James Reeve.

By the 60th minute the game was wrapped up as Wirral extended their lead to 9-34 with two further tries by Chris Speed and James Reeve, the latter a great run by the wing forward from 60m out down the touchline and then cut inside three covering Lymm players to score.

In the final minutes of the game, Wirral incurred two yellow cards which left them, somewhat, depleted.

In the final two minutes, Lymm scored two tries through Tom Shard and Jordan Widdrington both converted by Cormac Nolan to leave the score 23-34 but, overall, it was a comfortable win for Wirral, who remain seventh in the table.