Southport 23  Moore 15

TABLE toppers Moore suffered defeat at Southport despite a second-half rally in South Lancashire Cheshire Division Two on Saturday.

Moore lost their discipline early on, resulting in two sin-bins, which, along with several injuries in the pack, forced a reshuffle.

Southport took advantage of the extra men and Moore found themselves chasing a 16-0 deficit at half time.

Moore worked hard to get back into the game and a spell of sustained pressure gave Moore their first points from a penalty via Johnston.

Moore kept up their momentum and an excellent move that started with forwards ended with Johnston rolling over the Southport defence to score and add the extras.

The Moore fly-half then scored a fantastic solo effort out wide but missed the conversion to leave them one point short of Southport with minutes remaining.

With seconds ticking away Moore lost a scrum against the head. The Southport number eight picked up the ball and managed to avoid the tackles to run 50 metres for the winning score.

This Saturday, Moore move onto a home fixture against a top-four team of last year, Ormskirk, to hopefully further show the progress made this year.

Moore 2nd 51 Firwood Waterloo 3rd 24

MOORE produced a fine display to shock visitors Firwood with a comfortable victory on Saturday.

Firwood kicked off and immediately scored on the wing to put Moore on the back foot.

However, the tide started to change and by half time Moore were 17-10 in front.

Southport had no answer to Moore’s new-found confidence in the second half and the home team started to run away with the game, with man-of-the-match Joe Long claiming four tries and a penalty conversion.

Mike Woolacott finished off the scoring for Moore.