LITTLEBOROUGH 0 TRAFFORD MV 19

TRAFFORD MV kicked off the new year with a much-needed 19-0 win at Littleborough in North Lancs/Cumbria Division.

Littleborough won the toss and chose to play with the advantage of a sloping pitch, expecting MV to tire playing uphill on a sticky, heavy pitch.

Both sides opened playing attritional rugby with MV more than matching the bigger home side's forwards.

Trafford took the game to the home team with good drives from Danny Burke and Andrew Quigley and excellent tackling from Gaz Bevan at open side.

MV soaked up early pressure and then made ventures into the Littleborough 22 where good ball retention forced interference from the defence and gave Pat Eccles the opportunity to nudge MV ahead with a penalty.

Trafford maintained their game plan and their pressure forced another penalty which Eccles duly converted.

With tight games the norm between these two sides MV knew the game was still on and Littleborough forced two penalty attempts themselves but both were poorly struck and failed to register.

In the second period, Stuart Crampton's astute kicking and the forwards taking the game to the hosts constantly had Littleborough on the back foot.

And it was not long before MV winger Jamie Kingdon sprinted over wide on the left to make it 11-0.

The hosts squandered another penalty kick before MV scored a second try.

It looked as if Matt Coxon had wriggled through his tackler to score, only to be brought down a couple of yards short.

But the ball was retained and quickly moved along the back line for Salford University student Dominic West to outpace his opposite number wide on the right.

He converted himself with Pat Eccles having been replaced due to a knee injury.

MV rounded off the game with a late penalty from West.

It was a great start to the new year for MV with both forwards and backs performing well.