Birkenhead Park 5 Lymm 14

FACING some familiar faces made Lymm’s defence “step up another level” in their win at Birkenhead Park on Saturday, head coach Adam Fletcher says.

Brothers Lucas and Will Titherington, who had been fixtures at Crouchley Lane through the age groups, recently switched their allegiance to Park and came up against their former teammates.

However, despite their absence and that of six more senior players, Fletcher’s men got the job done to remain second in the Northern Premier ahead of a home game against Kendal on Saturday, kick off 2.15pm.

“I’m really happy with the win, especially with all the changes to the team,” Fletcher said.

“The boys who came in did superb, especially Luke Richards on his debut.

“With the Titherington boys now playing at Birkenhead, there was always going to be that little bit of added rivalry.

“I think it actually gave us the boost we needed. It made our defence step up another level.”

With the majority of the first half being played in the middle third of the pitch, the deadlock remained unbroken until five minutes before the break.

A spell of Lymm pressure ended with Cormac Nolan booting over a penalty to give the visitors a 3-0 half-time lead.

Five minutes after the restart, Nolan doubled his penalty tally before Lymm finally crossed the whitewash with a superb move.

Scott Redfern executed an excellent run-around move before firing a pass to Luke Richards, who in turn found Nolan to sprint over in the corner.

Park hit back shortly afterwards after Redfern had been sin-binned for Lymm, crossing with a catch-and-drive effort to reduce the lead to six points.

However, a superb restart from Tom Shard pinned the hosts into their own 22 and, when they finally infringed as a result of relentless Lymm pressure, Nolan slotted over the penalty to secure the victory.

Lymm: Gav Woods, Adam Bray, Matty Hand, Joe McGrail, James Yates, Aaron Rasheed, Jake Ashall, Joe Watson; Tom Shard, Scott Redfern; Ali Sutherland, James Kimber, Tom Bray, Rich McEvoy, Cormac Nolan. Subs: Kieran O’Callaghan, Rhys Jones, Luke Richards.