Whitehaven 11 – 5 Didsbury Toc H

The new format competition, which culminates in a Twickenham final, sees groups of three teams play each other once and the winner of the group progresses to face the winner of the group from another region. Both Didsbury (representing Lancashire) and Whitehaven (representing Cumbria) had beaten Douglas (representing Cheshire) in their previous games, so it all hinged on Saturdays encounter.

Didsbury made the long trip with a number of players missing from the squad, but they welcomed a number of players from the second XV who have been performing well of late. The game was always going to be a tight affair with both teams performing well in their respective leagues. The first half saw the home side have the best of the possession and Didsbury unable to make any serious inroads into the Whitehaven’s well organized defence. The first half’s only score was a penalty for the home team and the half time talk between the Didsbury team would have reiterated the need to go back to the game plan that has served them well this season.

Didsbury were first out of the blocks in the second half and used the rolling maul to make ground into an attacking area. The pressure brought a penalty, which was put wide by Dylan Williams, but from the resulting restart Workington mis-kicked and gave Didsbury a scrum. From the scrum and a number of phases to suck in the defence the ball was spread wide to the heavily bandaged Dave Hoare who raced in unchallenged. The visitors lead was short lived as Whitehaven added another penalty, and with time running out the home side secured the win with an unconverted try.

Didsbury showed some good spirit during the encounter, but suffered with the long coach journey and a number of unavailabilities. Next Saturday Didsbury welcome Trafford to Ford Lane, 2:15pm kick off. The fixture sees second play third in North Lancs 1.