ALTRINCHAM Kersal’s under-12s took centre stage last weekend with no matches for the senior men’s or women’s teams.

And they battled hard to put in a creditable display despite a 6-3 defeat at Ashton on Mersey in a Cheshire Plate preliminary-round match.

Kersal quickly found themselves 2-0 down with Ashton running strongly through tackles.

However, the boys regrouped and started to put in some strong rucking.

This caused Ashton to concede a number of penalties just in front of their try line.

Kersal attacked and battered the line before crossing the line only for their player to be held up in the tackle.

From the scrum, another drive saw them make it over the gain-line and score.

From the restart, Kersal immediately put the opposition under pressure, forcing the full-back to kick.

It was caught and punted back down the pitch and a handling error by the hosts gave Kersal enough time to pick up the ball and charge over for an equalising try.

The visitors were looking good and the scrum was dominating but a mistake gave Ashton enough room to run in another try just before half time.

The second half started with both teams attacking and defending with gusto.

Unfortunately, Kersal lost a player to a hand injury in a tackle and he had to retire from the field.

This seemed to affect the team and Ashton were able to run in three tries in quick succession.

It looked like Ashton were going to win the tie with ease but Kersal were not going to take defeat lying down.

They upped their workrate and started running directly at the home defence with passion and purpose.

They began to win every scrum and boss the team at scrum-half.

They had pace and tackled hard as the hosts began to struggle.

During one maul, Kersal came out with the ball and had a clean run at the opposition’s try-line but they were held up.

From the scrum, the ball was passed down the line to the wing and the Kersal wide man drove hard at the Ashton defence.

They then picked up the ball from the subsequent ruck.

A few jinks later they went over the line for a third score.

Time was running out and despite some very determined running and a try-saving tackle, Kersal just could not make up the difference in time.