Rugby Union: West Park St Helens 5 – 68 Littleborough Colts

Littleborough Colts travelled to West Park St Helens on Sunday (4 November), looking to improve on their previous performance in the league where they recorded their first loss of the season.

The away side playing in changed colours of purple and black, starting the game strongly with a good catch and clearing kick from the West Park kick off, Jacob Harrison returning the ball with interest to beyond the half way line.

From the resulting lineout, the ball was won by Littleborough and spun through hands wide left, a couple of strong carries were followed by Kai Sumner running onto a short ball and crashing over from 15 metres out.

The away side were determined to put the ball through hands at every opportunity, utilising the surging runs of forwards Jack Radcliffe, Charlie Holmes and Ben Stott in midfield to suck in defenders and create space out wide. These tactics quickly resulted in the ball being shipped wide through the hands of centre partnership Mills and Heap to create the space for Charlie Sutcliffe to steam through a gap on the left flank for Littleborough’s second try.

Further scores from David Mills and then arguably the try of the match from Sutcliffe followed. A lineout deep in the away team’s half, won again by the dominant Harvey Ashworth snaffling the ball at the front of the lineout, the ball was spun to the backs who executed a planned move to create space for Sutcliffe to slice through from a deep line, with only the full back to beat before dotting down under the sticks.

The first half finished as it started with Littleborough breaking through the West Park defence on the left flank before scrumhalf Bradley Watts received the ball and dinked a kick over for Sutcliffe to complete his hat-trick.

Jacob Harrison added the extra two points from the tee as he had with the previous four tries taking the score to 0-35 at the break.

The second half started off in the same fashion with a second try from Sumner and one for Ben Stott, rewarding his hard work in the engine room and in the loose. The West Park defence stuck at the difficult task of stifling the marauding Littleborough pack, Nick Mannion making ground in the loose with his power and pace and unselfishly feeding his support runners, the fresh legs of the half-time replacements being used to good effect.

The pressure eventually told again with Jacob Harrison finishing in the right-hand corner after good work from the back line.

The Littleborough defence was relentless, not letting the home side escape from their own half, creating turnover ball at will. The next try came from a trademark break from Watts, picking up from the base of the scrum, the defence committed by the supporting run of half back partner Nolan. Watts threw a trademark outrageous dummy, to allow a stroll under the sticks for five points. Harrison added the extras to complete eight from eight kicks before being rested for the last 10 minutes.

Littleborough then took their foot off the gas and complacency at the breakdown allowed the home side through to score and put the only blot on the Littleborough copy book, galvanising the Littleborough lads to end the game on the front foot.

Good work at the breakdown on halfway line allowed Nolan to arrow a long pass to centre Mills who released centre partner Liam Heap at speed, cutting through a huge gap in midfield.

With only the fullback to beat, a shimmy, side step and dummy from Heap left the defender rooted to wrap up a convincing victory for the boys in purple and black.