Eccles 3rd 20 v Didsbury Toc H 3rd 43

The thirds came unstuck in their quest for another victory losing at home to a Toc side who had that bit extra in attacking options.

Eccles had an early let off as the visitors missed a kickable penalty and made the most of it with set of relentless drives form the forwards finally seeing prop Jacob Henderson ploughing over for the opening try . Toc responded immediately with a drive over try of their own to square matters and despite losing the first couple of scrums suddenly started to exert pressure in that department and also disrupt the Eccles line out .The thirds nosed ahead again as Peter Cibula charged through from a tap penalty witht Reece James hiiting the post with the conversion. A knock on gave Toc a scrum in good position and they worked a gap to score under the post with conversion inching them ahead . Eccles got themselves frustrated by the increasing penalty count against them and got caught defending too narrowly allowing space for Toc to score out wide and thus lead 24-10 at the interval.

Things got worse in the second half with a forward pass missed a llowing Toc to add further try much to the chagrin of skipper Gary Hamer who then got the red card in bizarre circumstances . Eccles managed to win last week with fourteen men but it unlikely to happen on this occassion as a mad five minutes scoring frenzy ensued. Utilising the extra man the Toc right wing scored in the corner but Cibula to the ball straight from the kick off to power under the posts for a try but the Toc winger immediately replied with another in the corner and then completed his hatrick to rub salt into the wound. Another burst from Cibula was foiled inches from the line but support was on hand and Steve Gregory was able to get over for a consolation try. A great effort from back row Mike Mpofu who ran in tirelessly throughout the match and some good bursts from centre Pete Jones but on the whole Eccles lacked the craft of the visitors who had a couple of game changing players.