Crosfields 26 Waterhead Warriors 14

CROSFIELDS' dominant first half performance was enough to secure the points at Hood Lane on Saturday.

An early forage into the visitors’ territory looked to bring the first score of the game, but the try was disallowed for offside.

Crosfields expansive game was rewarded after 10 minutes when quick passing to the right and an excellent pick up by John Whittaker, who drew the final defender to feed Matt Mahoney for the try.

Another 'try' was disallowed for a forward pass, before Jack Reid dummied his way over, for an 8-nil lead.

Mahoney and Keiron Thomas made good ground to set position for Steve Pickersgill to link with Reid, who sent Chris Burgess over on 24 minutes. Reid converted for 14-nil.

On 28 minutes surges from John Pickersgill and Matt Barber had Waterhead on the backfoot. Reid’s cross-field kick was taken by Ian Boden, who went in at the corner. Reid converted for a 20-nil lead.

On 34 minutes another Thomas break took Crosfields deep into the opposition half. Drives by the Pickersgill brothers had Waterhead working overtime in defence. Hayden James wide pass hit Barber, who crashed over for a characteristic try. Reid’s conversion made the half time score 26-nil.

Suprisingly, Crosfields were not to trouble the scorer in the second half.

They started brightly, moving the ball around the field, but the timings was not quite right and having created walk in chances, managed to bomb them through forward passes or dropped ball.

Waterhead took advantage of this lapse and made the most of their opportunities, scoring three second half tries to bring the score back to 26-14.

Crosfields defence remained in-tact for the last quarter and they secured victory.

The first half performance was a great team effort, with all the players responding well. John Pickersgill stood out in only his second game in five years.

The Crosfields man of the match went to Jack Reid.