Hoppers were put to the sword by a rampant Macclesfield side that are now in pole position to win National 2 (North). Macc ran in eight tries and showed just why they are leading the way in the league but Hoppers can be proud of a team that showed plenty of commitment and could have made more impact on the score sheet but for a bit of luck and some poor officiating.
Macclesfield were worthy winners and built the win around there impressive pack and strong set piece, the visiting forwards dominated for the majority of the game but Hoppers put in a great amount of effort up front and when they did manage to get the ball out to the backs they caused the league leaders some real problems that wasn’t reflected in the final score.
The visitors got off to a great start with two tries from Evan Stewart; the flanker picked some great lines throughout the game and hit the line hard. He got his first after a sustained series of possession in the Hoppers half, Macc were patient and waited for the gaps to appear and Stewart blasted his way through a couple of tackles. The second was from a scrum on the 22, Macc turned it towards the short side and Stewart was in support to pick a good line and cross for his second. The ever reliable Ross Winney converted both and was near perfect throughout the game.
Hoppers were causing the visitors some problems with Tom Ball sniping around the breakdown and Tom Hughes was a constant threat throughout, they created a couple of half chances and were unlucky not to be rewarded for their effort.
Macc increased their lead when centre Matthew O’Regan claimed two tries in quick succession, the first came after he picked up a loose pass, after Macc had enjoyed a good spell of possession, and used the slight hesitation in the home defence to his advantage and outpaced the covering players to score in the corner. The second, that secured the try bonus point when he picked a great line of Winney’s inside shoulder to slice through the midfield.
Hoppers got on the board through a Tom Hughes penalty but the joy was short lived as they were reduced to 14 men just before half time when John Young was shown a yellow card, his second dubious sin binning in consecutive games. Macc chose to take the scrum and again used the inside ball well as Stewart powered through to complete his hat trick. Winney converted to give the visitors a 33-3 lead at the half.
The second half continued in the same vein as Hoppers put in a lot of effort but just did not have the clinical edge to put points on the board. To make matters worse they were not only battling the leagues top side but the referee, as no sooner had Young returned than Matt Hughes was sent to the bin for a similar infringement, this time on half way, but a catalogue of Macc penalties inside the 5m line never produced one card for the visitors.
Macclesfield showed their though with three more well taken tries in the second half, Fergus Mulchrone scored a superb solo effort after collecting a kick on half way, the winger set off in field but the cut back against the grain to capitalise on a gaping hole and outpaced the defence.
Replacement John Lowden was put through a massive gap by another great pass from Winney, who controlled the game from start to finish and Mulchrone completed the rout when he was on hand to round of an impressive break from Tony Howcroft.
Hoppers continued to try and create and never gave up the cause, while the result did nothing for the side the effort and commitment on the pitch should at least give hope for the future.
No comments:
Post a Comment