Macclesfield 41
Lymm 12

Lymm fielded a much stronger side than last week in the last fixture in the Premier League season and welcomed back Henry Baldwin and Giles Dugdale after lengthy injury lay-offs.

Lymm kicked off with Macc opting to kick deep into the Lymm half. However, a loose return kick saw the strong Macc left wing race in from halfway through some weak tackling to score. He proved to be thorn in Lymm’s side all afternoon as the majority of his sides tries involved him.

Lymm responded with some good forward drives, led by Cash Chilvers and Dan Horton and from a penalty won at a ruck, Lymm decided to go the corner rather than kick the easy goal. It looked as if the initial catch drive had been repelled but Lymm made a break through the centre which was halted on the line. However showing patience Josh Davies dived over from short range for an unconverted try.

Although under pressure in the scrum, Lymm had plenty of possession but bad handling or poor decision making thwarted their attempts to build pressure on Macc and the home side took their chances to score two more tries.

On the stroke of half-time Paddy Jennings picked up the ball, 5 metres from the Macc line and like the Red Sea the defenders parted and he sprinted in rounding the full back for a try which Josh Davies converted. Ht 19-12 At half time coach Peter Millachip emphasised retaining possession, keeping our shape and patience. This seemed to go out of the window as Lymm lost the ball in vital positions and made individual sorties which ended in turnovers. Macc capitalised on these errors to put the game out of reach.

Having beaten Macc earlier in the season, this was disappointing display. There was a lot of individual effort but far too many mistakes meant no pressure could be applied to the Macc defence. In the forwards Paddy Jennings was outstanding running hard and straight proving a handful for Macc. Also Cash Chilvers was a willing ball carrier. In the backs Giles Dugdale tackled well on his return.

Next week it’s the Cup with a home game against Blackburn 2’s

Squad:

J Hamer, R Forrest, G Dugdale, Josh Davies, J Reynolds, A Simpson, W Leach, K Soni, J Lewis, R Riddell, H Baldwin, W Baldwin, N Ashton, C. Chilvers, D Horton, Reps: P Jennings, J Davies