The exciting Boro 2's travelled in the wind and rain to face a West Park side who they had already beaten twice at home this season. With the early season league game being a tight encounter won by a last minute penalty try, Boro knew this would be a much tougher game that the one-sided cup encounter in November.

Travelling with the usual suspects and a combination of youth and experience the side set off through strong wind and rain across to Merseyside. On arrival however, despite the very strong cold wind, the sun was out and the mood in camp was upbeat.

With a couple of late withdrawls, Boro travelled with only 1 sub, that being a Cameo appearance from Graham Shepherd. This meant a starting place for Sutcliffe and a switch around in the pack with Chadwick at 8. The backs benefited two fold from the returning from Taylor at 9 allowing Hough to manage the game from his preferred fly half spot. Joel Rawlinson also stepped up from the bench to partner Lawler in the centre.

The game started with Boro on the back foot having received the kickoff, giving away a couple of early penalties though technical infringements in the forwards. With the game being played in the Boro 22, despite excellent tackling and pressure relieving kicking from Hough, Taylor and Coop, Boro could not get out of their defensive 3rd.

After a further spell of pressure, from the resulting lineout just inside the Boro 10m line, the West Park 10 put over a searching kick to the corner, which bounced awkwardly and then failed to run on in the mud, thus allowing the West Park winger to beat Colnutt to the ball. Despite what appeared to be excellent defence, with Boro backs under the ball, the referee awarded a try through a pile of bodies. The conversion was missed.

This appeared however to wake Boro up, either that or the now driving hailstones and cold. As Boro began to develop patterns of play and put pressure on the West Park defence with strong forward play from the front 5 in both the tight and the loose creating mistakes from the West Park backs as they tried to move the ball wide.

One of these mistakes was to lead to Boro's first try. Excellent play from Fino at the breakdown and then from Ellidge gave Lawler the chance to utilise the little space available down the touchline to beat the fullback for pace and round towards the post. As he said after the game though, his path to the posts was blocked by the huge West Park tighthead, and he took the calculated decision not to try and pass him. No matter however as an excellent kick from Taylor in challenging conditions added the extra 2 points.

With the weather giving us it worst, and a West Park player receiving treatment, the players took shelter in the stand prior to the restart!

Nothing much of note followed in what was turning out to be an attrition-al game in poor conditions and the game went into Half time with the Boro just in the lead.

Half Time. WPSH 5 - Boro 7

The second half saw Shepherd replace Sutcliffe at the interval, however injury 5 minutes into the second half to Godwin saw Sutcliffe return to the fray.

With lineouts for both teams not delivering regular quality service to the back, most of the play was coming from scrums. Again, Boro pack were strong under there pressure of the larger pack and won all bar 1 of their own put ins and disrupted a number of the West Park set piece. From one such occurance, Boro were able to attack down the right and from the resulting strong carries from Mill and Bex, the ball came out slowly to Lawler. Under pressure from the advancing defence a deft little chip over the top caused confusion in the West Park defence. As Lawler followed up his kick, a fortunate bounce fell into his hands and as the defence looked for each other to make the tackle Lawler slipped through and under the posts for his second of the game. Taylor again converted.

There was a feeing then that Boro would go on to win the game, there was a clear edge that Boro had over their opponents at the breakdow, with a number of turnovers and penalties being won by Fino, Hough, Sutcliffe, Roberts and Shepherd. With Hough constantly clearing the Boro lines from resulting penalties, the frustration in the West Park three quarters was obvious, and something which Boro were able to thrive upon. With 15 to go, a penalty opportunity was presented to enable Boro to stretch their lead and Taylor duly did the honours.

More solid defence and tight 5 work continued to keep the opposition at bay but unfortunately Boro were unable to add to any more points. This included an extremely unlucky moment when the wind took hold of a superb looping miss pass from Lawler to Roberts and put it just out of reach of a run in to the corner.

All in all, a solid performance in this tight league and a 4th away win in 5, which pushed Boro to joint second (third on points difference only). With many of the sides around us to come to Rakewood before the end of the season, the possibility for promotion is real and the boys are starting to dream.

Final Score

WPSH 2's 5 - LIttleborough 2's 17

MOTM, tough call this week, with many strong performances, however must go to 2 try centre. Danny Lawler