TRAFFORD travelled to Hutton but despite the lion’s share of possession, the home side struggled to break down the resilient MV defence, and could only open the scoring through a penalty.

MV soon responded with a penalty from Ben Wheeler to even the scores.

Trafford’s front eight were achieving parity at both the lineout and scrum, however struggled against the rolling maul from an experienced Hutton pack. It was from one of these rolling mauls that Hutton scored their first try, which was converted to take the score to 10-3 to the home side.

Hutton’s defence began to infringe and the referee penalised to allow Wheeler a further three shots at goal which took the score to 10-12 to Trafford.

MV started the second half poorly and Hutton pinned MV back, despite spirited defence a missed tackle saw the Hutton No10 run under the posts for a simple converted try to give Hutton into a 17-12 lead.

Hutton were awarded a dubious try with 20 minutes to go and even though the conversion was missed MV had a mountain to climb.

Changes were made to the MV side and Wheeler kicked his fifth penalty of the match to take the visitors to within a converted try of the draw.

Trafford face Tarleton next week.

The team will have great support in this fixture as the club’s former players assemble for their annual reunion - any former MV players reading this are welcome to attend at 1pm prior to the 3pm kick off.

Contact Wilf Dooley on 01942 884542 for details.