Rugby Report: Myerscough AASE vs Moulton College AASE

Myerscough College's AASE (Sale Sharks) side are experiencing a difficult start to the 2012/2013 season after losing their fourth consecutive league game 52-10, having faced a formidable opponent in Moulton College AASE (Northampton Saints) on Wednesday 10^th October, at Myerscough College’s main campus in Preston.

In the first 10 minutes, Myerscough put up a good fight, and after falling behind 7-0, a superb break from Fullback Tim Jeffers who jinked his way past several defenders before offloading to Sam Bedlow who ran over the line to score Myerscough’ first try of the game. Scrum Half Will Batterbury missed the conversion which made the score 5-7 with only 6 minutes gone on the clock.

From this moment on, the game became a scrappy affair with both sides knocking on and turning the ball over. However, Myerscough’s Number 8 Aidan Charlton was leading from the front, forcing turnovers and tackling hard to deny Moutlon’s pack from dominating.

Will Batterbury was also impressing after some good tackling and excellent sweeping work to keep the scoreline the same as the pressure began to increase on Myerscough. But soon after this, a killer blow as Moulton scored two quick tries to send Myerscough in at half-time 5-19 down, with the momentum starting to go with Moulton.

The half-time team talk from Steve Gough, Head of Rugby at Myerscough College, seemed to have an effect in the opening 10 minutes of the second half, as Myerscough came out looking dangerous and in attacking mood.

A huge hit by Myerscough’s Jack Wilkinson on the Moulton centre was felt in the crowd and the home side seemed to gain confidence from this, with a superb break from Ben Rhodes Powers down the right wing following quickly after.

Myerscough’s pack dug deep and attempted to drive the ball over the line, but it became unplayable, and the referee blew his whistle for a 5 metre scrum. In the 10 minute spell that followed, Moulton’s size and power came to the fore and the visitors ran in several unanswered tries.

With the score standing at 5-52 the match as a contest was over. However, late in the game when other sides will have just given up, Myerscough fought back, showing the potential they had promised earlier in the game, and managed to get the last score of the game through the impressive looking Centre, Sam Kendall.

Steve Gough did have some positives to take from the game: “I am disappointed but not massively disappointed. We did create a number of opportunities in the first half and we did keep them out for a long time in that first half. We did comeback during the game but our mistakes let us down and helped their dominance.” He picked out Tim Jeffers, Will Batterbury and Adam Brocklebank as the players who stood out for Myerscough".

He was optimistic about the teams next few games: “We have a game on Saturday which is winnable and then a cup competition next week before the next round of league fixtures. We have had a very tough run of games and these next two games are an opportunity for the players to start enjoying playing rugby again. Hopefully it can give the team momentum.”

This report was compiled by Stephen Thomas, 2nd Year Sports Journalism student at The Univeristy of Central Lancashire (UCLan). Stephen will be working with Myerscough College Sport to produce match reports for the 2012/2013 season.