Red Rose Christmas Rugby across the County

Tarleton travelled to Ormskirk for another local derby with a full squad and in confident vein following a large victory against this side at home earlier in the year.

On a cold miserable afternoon neither team started well and mistakes were the order of the day, Ormskirk looked a different side from the outset and their game plan was to use their larger players to punch holes in the Tarleton defence and then whip the ball wide to their No.12 who was a thorn in Tarletons’ side all afternoon with his jinking runs and pace.

Indeed, after 10 minutes of scrappy play the ball was sent wide to the Kirk No. 12 and some poor tackling saw him burst through to score a good individual try.

Tarleton came straight back and looked as though they were going over in the corner but Luke Banks was tap tackled and fell just short of the line allowing Ormskirk to recover the ball and clear the danger.

Tarleton continued to press and after 20 minutes some good passing saw the Tarleton No. 8 go over to bring the score to 7-5.

Tarleton were being pinged far too often for misdemeanours at the breakdown and from one of these penalties Ormskirk stretched their lead to 10-5.

Tarleton attacked again and got to within 10 metres of the line when the Ormskirk defence lay on the ball to prevent it being played and from the resulting penalty Tarleton closed to gap to 10 – 8.

With 5 minutes to go to half time Tarleton again let themselves down, giving away a penalty for handling on the ground and the Ormskirk kicker gratefully took the 3 points to leave the half time score at 13-8.

As the temperature dropped Tarletons’ tempo increased and the pack started to exert continuous pressure and from a run of 6 re-set scrums the ball eventually came out and Brian Parsons smashed his way through the Tarleton defence to score under the posts, the conversion was good and for the first time in the match Tarleton led by 15-13.

Tarleton lost a player to the sin-bin for persistent offside as Ormskirk pressed again and getting the ball wide should have scored unopposed in the corner but a dropped pass let Tarleton off the hook. Ormskirk came again and this time despite getting over the line the ball was held up by 2 Tarleton defenders and Ormskirk were denied again.

Tarletons’ luck couldn’t last and a clearance kick from their 22 was partially charged down and bounced kindly to an Ormskirk player who crashed in at the corner for Ormskirk to take the lead again at 18 – 15.

Ormskirk put another try on the board 4 minutes later following some good forwards play and stretched their lead to 23-15 and with 8 minutes left on the clock it looked to be all over.

Tarleton had other ideas though and they scored another unconverted try in the corner to bring the score to 23-20 but this proved to be the last score of the match.

Ormskirk earned the bragging rights to take them in to Christmas and Tarleton will need to lay off the mince pies and re-organise themselves for the first match of the New Year which is at home against second place Carnforth.

A win is essential to keep them in the top 4.