Macclesfield 53 Wharfedale 12

Macclesfield turned in arguably their best performance of the season this weekend beating Wharfedale 53-12 in National League One.

The Blues were out for revenge after suffering a heavy defeat in the Yorkshire dales earlier in the season and certainly gave the Priory Park crowd something to savour. The team scored an impressive seven tries and secured their ninth maximum points victory of the season.

Macc made the brighter start to the game and it didn’t take long for the deadlock to broken, Ross Winney converted a penalty after just seven minutes to give the home side a 3-0 lead. The lead was increased further after fifteen minutes when home debutant Jack Moorhouse collected the ball on the left wing and used his pace to evade the ‘Dale defence to score the opening try of the game. Winney failed to add the conversion and Blues were 8-0 up.

The home side were dominating the game, and had all the possession, though the Wharfedale defence seemed to be coping well until Evan Stewart finished an excellent move and scored his first try of the match, Winney converted the try and the Blues were in control at 15-0.

Wharfedale began to exert some influence on the game, and their pack was giving Macc’s defence something to think about. The away side capitalised on this period of pressure when flanker Dan Solomi broke free and carried the ball over to score the first of his two tries, full back Tom Davidson failed to convert and ‘Dale were back in the game at 15-5.

The Blues third try came very much against the run of play, Wharfedale were controlling the ball and pressuring the home defence, but Stewart gained possession and took full advantage scoring his second try of the game. Winney made the kick from a tight angle and Macc went in at the break winning 22-5.

Though it was the second half where Macclesfield were so impressive, the game was all but over just five minutes after the restart when Jon Keep and Josh Fowles scored in quick succession, Winney converted both and ‘Dale now had a mountain to climb at 36-5 down. Though the Blues were not finished there, Winney continued a fine kicking display converting a penalty after 50 minutes and the Blues were 39-5 up.

Credit must go to the away side, they kept fighting and kept challenging the Macclesfield defence and were given a glimmer of hope on 65 minutes when Solomi scored his second of the game, Davidson added the extras to make the score 39-12.

Any home of a comeback was ended after 70 minutes when Jack Moorhouse capped a superb debut scoring his second try of the match, finishing possibly the Blues best move of the game. Winney again stepped up and converted the try and the home side lead 46-12.

The victory was sealed with the last move of the game when centre Tom Davenport broke through the Wharfedale defence to score Macc’s seventh try of the day and bring up the half-century for the home team. The conversion was added by Winney to make the final score 53-12 and it was yet another highly impressive performance from Macc and as each week goes by fourth spot is consolidated just that bit more.