2nd win keeps Maroons on top of League

The Maroons produced a commanding display to see-off visitors Westoe 35-12 on Saturday and extend their perfect start to the new campaign.

Morley faced early pressure from Westoe, and it was not until the 14th minute that they actually got into the visitors half, but a fine break by Tom Clough saw him outpace the covering defence to put the hosts 5-0 ahead with the first try of the afternoon.

The hosts dominated the game but handling errors let them down and they had to wait until four minutes before the break to add to their tally.

Good work from Mark Chester and Paul Gabriel released Ben Bell, who raced clear to cross under the posts.

Chester added the conversion and he was on target twice just before the break when he punished offside infringements to give the hosts an 18-0 half-time advantage.

Morley continued to suffer from a lack of precision in the second half and their defence was called into action to keep Westoe out,

However, man of the match Tom Hanson’s break put Bradley Marshall through for another score just before the hour. Chester again converted to make it 25-0.

Pushing for the bonus point, Morley were caught out by two long-range tries from James Clark and Andrew Lawson that reduced the deficit to 25-12.

However, the Maroons refused to panic and Gabriel crashed over from a rolling maul to secure the bonus point.

Chester again added the extras and he added another penalty to the tally with the last kick of the game.

Morley will be well pleased with the result and much of the performance but they will need to significantly reduce the number of handling errors when they travel to second place Waterloo on Saturday.