Latchford Albion 18 Orrell St James 36
LATCHFORD came out second best in the top of the table clash following an entertaining game that despite the scoreline was nip and tuck for 70 minutes.
On a hot day and in front of a healthy crowd at the Victoria Park Arena the hosts started strongly and applied some good pressure on the Orrell line. This paid dividends when the ball was spread out wide and Luke Hickman showed his strength to hold off two defenders and cross out wide for an early Albion lead.
The visitors are not undefeated for a reason and quickly responded with a well taken try which was converted and shortly after crossed again to take the lead.
Albion’s response was positive and hooker Dave Yii dummied his way over with Lewis Wightman’s conversion making the half time score an even 10-10
Where Latchford were quick starters in the first half it was the opposite in the second where again Orrell showed great skills to cross under the posts. However Hickman scored his second of the game following a 70 yard effort to reduce the deficit to two points.
In a game that became an arm wrestle neither side were willing to back down and Latchford thought they took the lead only for Muir to be brought back for a forward pass.
The visitors capitalised on this with an unconverted try but again Albion showed great spirit and a clever kick by Wightman was collected by Yii to score and with 65 minutes gone the games was in the balance at 18-20.
The next try was to be crucial and unfortunately for the hosts it went against them with the conversion opening up a two score lead.
As Latchford tired and with the game won the visitors added two further tries giving the scoreline a disappointing look but Latchford can take a lot of credit out of a great contest between two good sides.
Coach Lee Smith said: “Whilst I can’t fault the effort as we matched a team that hasn’t lost for over a year, we just need to be a little bit smarter as we did enough to win that game and a few bad decisions and executions of play was the difference. However we showed we can match it with the best of them”
Next up is another home game this Saturday when Wigan St Patrick’s visit with a 2.30pm kick off.
Dave Yii…dummied his way over
