LYMM EAGLES 60 – 39 MOORE 1 XV

Eagles Moore than Convincing in Victory

Lymm Eagles opened their account for the 2024 – 2025 season with a high scoring and very
competitive game against local rivals Moore. This was a game high on attacking intent and less focussed on defence. Despite the ever-present threat of rain, the day remained dry, and the firm ground of the No. 2 pitch coupled with almost no wind, provided the perfect opportunity for a good game of open, running rugby.

Following a short break of several months, stalwart Eagles Captain, Olly Brown, ably assisted by self- appointed team fitness coach and gentlemen’s outfitter, Rick (Macca) McEvoy, made great efforts to encourage the other members of the squad to turn out for preseason touch rugby on Tuesday nights throughout the Summer. The hope was to reacquaint some of the older members with the shape and feel of a rugby ball and possibly to shed a few pounds so that trying to cram themselves into a new O’Neills 3XL shirt would not be so much of a challenge. In reality, the turnout at training was very encouraging and said a lot about the commitment of the team to making the best start possible to the new season. Thanks must go to Rick McEvoy for helping to garner support from generoussponsors to help with the purchase of a new supply of “Stash” (Hoody, casual shirt and shorts) for the playing squad and supporters, which again goes to help engender a good team and club spirit.

Despite these “training” sessions, there was still plenty of apprehension heading down to the pitch, as some players hadn’t touched a rugby ball since April. It was a pleasant surprise that with good availability of Eagles players in all the required shapes and sizes, Captain Brown was able to select a good starting 15 and after a bit of tense negotiation with his counterpart at Moore, the Eagles wereable to persuade the opposition to allow 5 players as substitutes to help give most of the guys some pitch time. Even so, there were still a few Eagles players who had to step down from playing for the opening week. Special thanks go to Martin Henderson and Ash Caffrey for having a week off and for Mike Clarke, who took up the thankless task of heading over to the Wirral to play for the 2s against Caldy. These guys will be needed as the season goes on!

Despite being accidentally advertised as a 2.15 start, the game kicked off at 3.00pm. Despite
allowing the kick off to bounce, the ball was quickly recovered, with Olly leading a thundering charge up the pitch. This appeared to have a stunning effect on the opposition as they seemed a little confused as to what to do to stop the immediate onslaught. Lymm was quick to seize the advantage and gained field position in the Moore half. The forwards quickly moved the ball through several hands and found fly half Alan Reddecliff. Alan’s perfectly weighted grubber kick was fumbled in goal by the opposition full back, allowing the onrushing Macca a simple touchdown to open his account for the season and followed it up with a close-range conversion. (7 – 0) with less than 2 minutes on the clock – great stuff!

The quick initial score may have given Lymm a degree of overconfidence as their efforts to retain possession and drive back up the pitch led to several unforced errors and eventually to conceding a penalty in a very kickable mid field position about 30m out. The Moore 10 was spot on with his aim which shortened the points deficit to (7 – 3) all within the first 4 minutes. The game continued at a cracking pace with both sides determined to stamp their authority on the match with crunching tackles from Ben Stroud and Jack Harper setting the tone in defence. The ball was moved around the pitch with pretty decent passing and with most of the action between the 22m lines. Eventually the ball managed to find its way out to speedy winger Reece Forrest who turned on the gas and crashed his way through the remaining Moore defence to go over in the corner. Unfortunately the distance and angle were just out of Macca’s range for the conversion (12-3).

Stung by conceding two tries in the first 10 minutes, Moore redoubled their efforts and used some of their big forwards to try to batter their way through the Lymm defence. Only brave tackling by the forwards managed to repel several very strong attacks. Unfortunately, Lymm seemed intent on trying to give away as many penalties as possible and after several lineouts on the Lymm 5 metre line, it was only a matter of time before one of the Moore big lads was felled by a tackle close enough to the line to simply reach out and score. The successful conversion closed the score to (12- 10) after 15 minutes. Once again, the score seemed to inject a new sense of urgency into the Eagles game and only a few minutes later, veteran scrum half Chris (Kinner) Kinsey taught his much younger Moore counterpart a few lessons, after some verbal banter between the pair, by selling a couple of his trademark dummies to Moore’s advancing forwards, allowing him to scamper in for a cheeky, but sadly unconverted try to improve the score to (17-10).

The standard of rugby being played was remarkably good considering that Lymm and probably Moore had played little competitive rugby over the last 5 months. Flanker Steve Williams took control of the high ball at the restarts and gave Lymm some front foot ball to work from. The frantic pace of the game could not continue indefinitely and the Lymm forwards concentrated on close support and keeping possession. Strong binding and powerful legs allowed a well-constructed Lymm maul to drive a several metres forward to cross the Moore line and provide ball carrying captain Olly Brown with a good score but without the added points from the conversion (22-10). It was clear that the widening scoreline was not of concern to the Moore players when only a couple of minutes after the restart, their backs executed a directional switch which completely wrong footed the Lymm defence allowing Moore to cruise in and score close to the posts. Surprisingly the short range conversion was missed (22-15).

Play settled down for the next 5 minutes, with possession changing mainly due to unforced errors on both sides. Finally just after 30 minutes play, a perfectly executed lineout from Brown found a rampaging Reddecliff who was hauled down just short. The ball was quickly recycled for powerful flanker Kieran Williams, arriving off the bench, 10 metres out from the Moore line and crash through a couple of strong tackles to score under the posts. This time Macca made sure of the extra points (29-15). Once again Moore launched themselves at Lymm with renewed vigour and for the next 5 minutes Lymm were put on the back foot and were marched slowly down the pitch towards their own line. Eventually, Moore’s efforts were rewarded with a classic forwards try driving one of their big lads over to score with the conversion adding the extras (29-22). Lymm almost managed to score immediately after this, but an unfortunate Eagles player knocked on the ball in the act of scoring the try. To save their blushes, I won’t mention the player in question, as I’m sure it won’t Macca….sorry matter to the scoreline (first one of the season folks!!). With only seconds remaining on the clock after the restart, Lymm recovered a dropped ball from Moore and got it into the hands of flyhalf Reddecliff. Alan spotted a gap on the left-hand wing and promptly kicked a perfectly weighted cross field kick that was collected by winger Josh McKean, who powered through a last ditch tackle attempt to score. Despite being close to the touchline Macca made the conversion look easy to bring the score at half time to (36-22). Alan did very well to appear nonchalant about his wonderful kick, although at every opportunity afterwards, asked me to remember how to spell “Reddecliff” and “cross-field kick”

An interesting feature reported to me at this point which as scribe, touch judge and observer I hadn’t noticed that there had not been a single scrum in the first half! I say reported, I had to listen to prop Dave Coon moan about what a “pointless half of rugby it was with no scrums”, on the drive home later on! Plenty of action but no scrums – strange!

Half Time: Lymm Eagles 36 – 22 Moore

A high scoring half, both exciting and competitive, with both sides showing good skills and
capabilities but equally guilty of making plenty of mistakes and unforced errors. Lymm probably felt they should have been further ahead at this point. Time for some strong words from Captain Brown, primarily aimed at stopping the number of penalties from Lymm which were clearly giving Moore scoring opportunities. Despite a 14 point lead, the first half had seen 9 tries scored so this margin could quite easily and rapidly disappear. The words “imagine how we would feel if we let this slip” were uttered. It would be interesting to see if Lymm would put that feeling to the test. Lymm emptied the bench and welcomed Jim France, Craig Capewell and a returning Dave Williamson to the team to enjoy his first outing in 7 years.

Olly’s words must have hit home as the first 10 minutes of the second half proceeded without score or any penalties being conceded. Eventually Moore were the first to transgress which offered Macca the opportunity of adding another 3 points to his personal tally (39- 22). Unfortunately, only a couple of minutes later, almost straight from the restart, Moore intercepted a loose pass in the backs and sprinted straight through an almost static and clearly surprised Lymm team for an easy but unconverted score (39-27). Determined not to make the same mistake, Lymm seemed to adopt an “up the jumper” style of play for the next quarter of the game with plenty of ball movement across the width of the pitch but very little progress forward. Flanker Matt Grellier, hooker Capewell and birthday boy Jez Ure finally managed to wrestle back some control in the game with excellent carries and defensive efforts. The impasse was broken on 67 minutes when winger Reece Forrest, clearly having his best game of the season so far, took the initiative and set off on a great jinking run,
sidestepping several defenders to go over for his second try of the day, making up for being held up over the line minutes earlier. The try was promptly converted by Macca (46-27). About 5 minutes later, on 72 minutes, Alan ripped through the defensive line and fed powerful flanker Max Ure, who stormed the last 20 metres to the try line dragging a few Moore forwards with him for a great individual effort. His dad, Jez also on the pitch as a replacement forward can be justifiably proud of his efforts. With Macca providing the extras, the score moved to (53-27) with 8 minutes remaining on the clock.

Although at this point, Lymm clearly felt that they were in a dominant position, Moore yet again showed that they were still a force to be reckoned with. Completely against the run of play, Moore seized the ball from an error in loose play and proceeded to work their way up the pitch with some great handling and passing to score a well worked and well-deserved try. Fortunately, the conversion was missed to bring the score to (53-32). Lymm brought centres Simon Beards and Tom Baker back together again to try and provide some defensive stability that seemed to have departed the Eagles after a lot of rotations. Not to be outdone by his forward colleagues, with only a few minutes left, 2 nd row strongman, George (Ringo) Harrison, took it upon himself to relieve a tiring Moore back of his unwarranted possession of the ball, and bulldoze his way down the pitch bouncing any attempts to stop him scoring a great individual try. Macca again provided the successful conversion (60-32). With most of the players now hopefully expecting to hear the referee’s whistle to end the game, he allowed the restart. The ball sailed high and long only to be seemingly ignored by Lymm and collected by a rampaging Moore forward who skilfully gathered the ball and barged his way over to score on the stroke of full time. A quick drop kick added the points to give a final score of (60-39).

Full Time: Lymm Eagles 60 – 39 Moore

Not a classic game by any means, but one that showed the best endeavours of two highly competitive teams. Despite being local rivals, the game was played in the best spirit of sportsmanship and rugby values and we would like to thank Moore for a great game of rugby and look forward to seeing you later in the season. Plenty of tries all round and a lot of entertainment for the visiting spectators, who I’m pleased to report were a lot less vitriolic than usual. It was certainly one of the best attended Eagle’s games with numbers reaching close to double figures on both sides. The Eagles performance was very enthusiastic and exciting but perhaps more attention needs to be devoted to getting the basics right with a few of the more outlandish techniques being kept in reserve. If the Eagles can get the basics right and show the same level of attacking intent, then we are in for an exciting season.
Several shouts for Man of the match in this opening game. The 9 and 10 duo of Kinsey and Reddecliff controlled the game superbly all day, ably supported by Tom Baker. The ball carrying of Matt Grellier and Olly Brown gave Lymm a platform to work off all game. Reece’s direct running was a real weapon (even if he is not a winger). Man of the match eventually went to flanker Steve Williams, who was excellent in defence and attack and was an essential calming influence throughout the game. Well done Steve.

Next week, the Eagles fly south to take on fellow 3rd team Macclesfield, 3pm kick off. Any support will be gratefully received.

Team: 1) Olly Brown (C) 2) Matt Grellier 3) David Coon 4) George Harrison 5) Ben Stroud 6) Max Ure 7) Steve Williams 8) Jack Harper 9) Chris Kinsey 10) Alan Reddecliff 11) Josh McKean 12) Tom Baker 13) Simon Beards 14) Reece Forrest 15) Rick McEvoy REP 16) Dave Williamson 17) Jez Ure 18) Kieran Williams 19) Jim France 20) Craig Capewell

Match Report: Pete and David Coon

Other results this weekend:

Caldy 2nd XV 62 – 12 Lymm 2nd XV

Senior Colts Home Walkover v Knutsford Senior Colts

Stockport Junior Colts 15 – 7 Lymm Junior Colts