Moore 41 Manchester 10

MOORE upset the odds with a sublime victory over second-placed Manchester.

With a strengthened side, the Moss Lane side had the game in the bag by the break thanks to tries from Adam Wadsworth, Joe Pidgeon, Jack Harvey and Max Holland.

Harvey, Pidgeon and Wadsworth doubled their tallies after the break, while Sam Craven clocked up three conversions.

Moore will seek to build on their display when they travel to Lymm Kestrels this Saturday, kick-off 2.15pm, at Crouchley Lane.

Moore produced a steely determination that had been lacking in recent weeks.

Despite a bright start from Moore, repeated penalties would allow Manchester to advance down the field to kick an early penalty.

However, that would be the limit of Manchester’s attacking threat for the first half, as Moore would ramp up the pressure and show great attacking prowess.

An excellently worked move in the middle of the park would see Wadsworth cross the line to take a 7-3 lead.

This would soon by followed by another great bit of play seeing Pidgeon take advantage of an overlap to extend the lead to 12-3.

Eager not to miss out on the scoring action, the Moore forwards began to look increasingly threatening as they broke through the Manchester defence with some regularity.

An excellently worked offload would see Harvey break clear of the line to score, before Holland marked his return with a try to take the game to 24-3 at the half.

Having been in the same position of holding a winning position at half time, only to end up losing the game, much of the talk at the interval was about imposing greater control on the game and looking to play in the right areas.

Manchester, to their credit, came out and looked to impose themselves more on the game.

Moore’s defence, though, was highly impressive and were able to turn the ball over multiple times.

A turnover was punted deep into touch in the Manchester 22m and Moore were able to capitalise on a poor Manchester lineout, with a spilled ball being scooped up for Harvey to add another score.

Moore were more than happy to continue to soak up the pressure that Manchester were attempting to put on them and held firm, before looking to exploit the space deep behind Manchester’s line whenever the ball was turned over.

Excellent kicks into space saw Pidgeon and Wadsworth race on to balls and add two more tries to take the score to 41-3.

Manchester were determined to reduce the deficit as they stared down their heaviest defeat of the season.

They were eventually able to score under the posts after 70 minutes of solid Moore defence, but were turned away from the Moore try line time and again as the game ended 41-10.