Aldwinians 14 - 8 Didsbury Toc H

Toc H saw their squad travel without talented winger Dave Hoare, who has been sidelined with a fractured arm for several weeks. In the backs mercurial Joe Bradbury returned to fly-half, supported by hefty centre pairing Dylan Willaims and Anton Vasseur. Didsbury's strong pack remained mostly unchanged from their previous successful outing against Heaton Moor. With Aidan Murphy, Dave Foster and Andre Swan starting in the backrow.

Despite their late arrival at Aldwinians well-appointed ground, Didsbury started in very determined fashion and only some needless penalties allowed Aldwinians to clear their lines. The Didsbury scrum, powered by the in-form tight five (Ames, Hyde, Walker, Walker and Lawless) was again causing havoc in the set-piece, and made life difficult for the home side to maintain possession from the restarts. Didsbury deservedly took the lead midway through the first half, with Gaz Oakley converting a penalty and solid defence kept the score at 0-3 upto just before the interval. Didsbury won a 5 metre scrum and after driving to within touching distance of the tryline the home side's scrum collapsed and Didsbury's number 8 Andre Swan gathered and crashed over for the opening try. The conversion floated wide and Didsbury lead 0-8 at halftime.

The teams swapped ends, and almost on cue the gusting wind picked up much to Aldwinians advantage. The home side, sitting in 2nd place in the league, showed their doggedness and with a sniff of a chance presented itself out wide this was taken out wide for their first try. Didsbury battled hard with the whole team carrying the ball up the pitch, only for an error allowing Aldwinians to launch the ball back deep into Didsbury's territory. The home side took heart from their territorial advantage, and despite Didsbury defending the edges of the rucks and mauls well, Aldwinians' second row managed to reach and score another try. The conversion was added and the lead stretched to 14-8. With only minutes left on the referees watch Didsbury were thwarted from two close range attacking lineouts, somewhat questionably in the eyes of the Didsbury contingent.

Toc H had the consolation of a losing bonus point, but could rue the possibility of a win. Didsbury welcome Blackburn to Ford Lane next Saturday 2:15pm kick off.