Young Soap Narrowly Lose on the Road

Crosfields Alliance North West Men's League finally kicked in to action at a strong Oldham St. Anne's side this week following a postponed fixture due to weather last Saturday.

The team have trained very well together in pre season and had a couple of hit outs but they were up against an Oldham side containing a number of Conference League players as the 1st team game for Oldham had been postponed. Unfazed by this Ian Boden - taking charge of the team for the first time in the league - took a team of young enthusiastic talent over to an unusually warm Oldham for this time of year with the remit to enjoy their rugby and take the game to their more experienced opponents. This tactic was very much proving to be successful until the death as Oldham sneaked the win to break the hearts of a promising Soap side who will surely push for promotion on the evidence of this performance.

Boden had to leave 3 players out of a 17 with 3 players also unavailable due to work commitments showing that there is plenty of strength in depth within the team and a sign of the enthusiasm and willingness to put their hands up for selection.

The game opened on the wrong foot for the visitors however as Bailey Hartley found himself in the bin for lying on when St. Annes were in a good position after 3 minutes. This seemed to galvanise Soap though as following successive penalties they marched down field and took the lead on 10 minutes when experienced hooker Danny Lee tapped to himself and forced his way over from 10 metres. Sam Hickey added the extras to take an early deserved lead.

St. Annes themselves were down to 12 men midway through the half and this seemed to have the same effect on the hosts as they levelled the scoring against the run of play . The future of Crosfields certainly looks bright though, as both front row forwards dominated their opposition - 18 year old Jordan Williams a long serving Soap junior, made his debut at open age level recently returning from Warrington Academy duty was outstanding alongside 18 year old man of the match Tom Brown - unlucky to miss out on first team selection - both a credit to the club and the faith of the coach Ian Boden.

With the half time break approaching, more pressure from the soap led to Danny Lee crossing for his second try. The conversion was missed but the visitors went in at half time 10-6 up.

The second period was a test of defence for both teams and they both stood up very well as the lack of early points meant for a tense affair. It was Oldham however who broke the deadlock and crossed wide to level proceedings adding the extras to take the lead. This was turning into a really good game of amateur rugby league and Crosfields were beginning to get back on top and wrestled the lead back once again with Tom Brown managing to force his way over following a good passage of pressure.

That was as good as it got however as the experience of the home side told, with 8 minutes left on the clock and the visitors leading by 2 the spoils were to go to a much relieved home side capitalising on a slip and lack of concentration to score next to the posts and make the conversion easy for the excellent kicker. 3 tries each but superiority with conversions proved to be the difference but the visitors can take huge positives from a tough encounter that will have done the youngsters no harm at all.

Best for the visitor were the Front Row of Williams, Lee and Brown with Rob Bonehill in the second row backing them up well. In the backs full back Clutterbuck had a very strong game with experienced campaigner Chris Burgess excelling from the bench.