Clitheroe too Charitable

Clitheroe’s rugby men made the long trip down to the flatlands of Crosby still feeling the effects of a gruelling Christmas campaign so typical of the modern day elite sportsman; excess beer, turkey and pudding.

Well this is how they contrived to play, at least during the first half of the game. With a number of players still prolonging the festive season elsewhere, resources were stretched mighty thin. But there was a recall for centre Chris Waddington fresh from a Barmy Army trip down under; even so he did appear still to be jet lagged.

Also back in the 1st XV jersey was the silver fox himself Dave Watson, this time squeezing his chunky frame into the No.9 shirt. The ‘professor’ Dr. Chris Kay slotted onto the wing with front line goal kicker Greg Birch moving to full back.

The pack was full of the regular characters, a mobile back row of Andrew Rigby, Sam Thornber and Luke Hayton; providing an interesting blend of age, experience and good looks plus two youngsters to do the running for old sheep rustler.
Will Jones was back at prop along with the improving Tom Hardman and the bubbly Adam Penney [pic] at hooker.

Usually down at Crosby you can be guaranteed of a strong breeze blowing in of the Irish Sea, but on this day along with a near perfect pitch the air was still and quiet; in short it was a perfect day for rugby.

In this tail end of the holiday season it would be charitable to say that Clitheroe were a trifle slow off the mark, and took most of the first half to find any rhythm or accuracy. Plenty of passes going astray as the players took time to adjust from a sedentary fortnight.

There was a couple of clean line breaks from Stuart Railton, the first of which petered out with lack of support. The second however led all the way to the try line. Progress was held up at the foot of the posts but after a tremendous scrimmage in the midst of a pile of bodies, it was Rigby who pounced for the score.

Crosby had by this time scored two tries of their own, but a penalty from Birch reduced the arrears to 10-7 at the interval.

The home team started with a bang in the second half. Although did benefit from some poor decision making from the Littlemoor men. Two tries conceded but another Birch penalty to give the visitors a glimmer.
20-10 suddenly became 20-17 after a well deserved try for Railton. Crosby hit back with another try but Clitheroe were just about hanging on. Another couple of kicks from the mighty boot of Birch and the maroons were just 25-23 behind.

Now it was all Clitheroe; on top at scrum time with Penney grabbing a couple of strikes against the head, it seemed the momentum would swing the game Clitheroe’s way.

But the home team had other ideas. On the stroke of no side they scored in the corner and the kicker converted the hardest kick of the day to seal it for the home team.

Some good individual performances from some in the Clitheroe jerseys but a lack of precision and some below par execution of some skill sets led to their downfall.

A big derby game this Saturday at Littlemoor; Colne & Nelson are the visitors. Kick off 2:15pm