With the wait over, rugby returns to Littlemoor

After an 8 week wait due to the freezing weather conditions, Clitheroe First XV finally managed to make a belated start to 2010 with a home game against Kirkby Lonsdale. Every snow-cloud has a silver lining though and the enforced break gave extra time to several players to recuperate from injury and strong squad was named for this fixture against some familiar faces in the Kirkby squad.

The Maroon & Golds started strongly and with 7 minutes gone Nathan Peel, one of those players returning from injury, showed just how much he had been missed by cantering over for a score after some crashing runs from the forwards and good interplay between the backs was crowned by a searing run from youngster Olly Greenwood and meant Peel’s scoring job was easy. The conversion was missed, but again Clitheroe pressed, looking to play some sparkling rugby to blast the cobwebs away. Some excellent linking of backs and forwards saw the ball pass through many hands with the final pass going to the Rigby, who belied his advancing years to touch down. Again the extra points went begging, but again Clitheroe were relentless in their attack, Skipper Oliver McEntyre broke down the blind side from a scrum on the 10 metre line and fed it to his scrum half Smith who’s darting pace took him within 10 yards of the try line, unfortunately the supporting runners were unrewarded as the final pass would not go to hand and the score went begging. Kirkby Lonsdale having spent a large proportion of time defending now opened out and retained possession for several phases with the end result being a score under the posts for their winger and having dominated the opening quarter Clitheroe found themselves only 3 points to the good at 10 – 7. The Clitheroe backline opened up the Kirkby defence with a superb inside pass from Watson caught by Peel and sent on to full back Kino created a great flowing move which was finished off by wing man O’Connor in corner, the conversion was taken and the half time whistle went with Clitheroe leading 15 – 7.

A large supporting crowd anticipated the second half while the team made some changes, on came another returning form injury in the shape of Simon Cowgill for Nuttall as well as Curphey on for Atkinson. Again Clitheroe pressured the Kirkby line but frustratingly the lack of a recent game told on several occasions and the final pass just was not there on occasion. With Kirkby doing their best to slow the game down to their pace Clitheroe took the points when penalties were awarded and the score ticked over to 21 – 7 after two successful conversions. Kirkby Lonsdale continued to use attack as the best form of defence and some stunningly ferocious tackling from the backline and from Bartle in particular kept pushing them back. A further change to the team came when Andrew Thornber left the field with a nasty looking knee injury to be replaced by tenacious scamp Adam Penny at hooker, by this time Sam Thornber had come on for Watson and was involved in a scramble for the line after a great up and under, Greenwood secured the ball for Clitheroe but young Thornber snatched the glory with his inaugural First XV try. The Maroon & Gold were now cruising to a comfortable victory, but a likeable trait of the squad this season is that they play rugby right up to the final whistle showing beaten teams no mercy. Having his First XV debut for the season, Ben Rigby showed some great pace and was unlucky not score on two occasions in the final 10 minutes. Then from a quickly taken penalty scrumhalf Smith found his Skipper this time and McEntyre managed to break the line to ground the ball. Try converted and the scores remained at 35 – 7 until the final whistle a couple of minutes later. An excellent performance from a squad entitled to be a bit rusty, there were many performances worthy of the award but the inaugural “Emporium Man of the Match Award” went to Matt Bartle for his ferocious tackling and darting forward runs.

Next Clitheroe look forward to entertaining Thornton at home, Kick Off 2.15pm