Sat 21 Sep 2024, 14:00
A beautiful autumn afternoon with the glorious Gorton Street turf bathed in sunshine was the scene for the inaugural fixture between Eccles and Douglas, and what a memorable match it turned out to be. The teams both began the day with two defeats from two games and looking for that first victory to lift them off the bottom of the R2NW table. Promotion to the level 6 division has proven to be a brutal experience so far for Eccles. Decimated by injuries and suffering a 12-55 loss to Bowdon, the newly assembled team with seven 1XV debutants to date had shown plenty of grit and potential with their 33-22 loss at Crewe & Nantwich last week. Douglas, arrived off the back of a 33-0 drubbing from Waterloo and a narrow 13-15 defeat to Widnes last week. And so the stage was set for a close and dramatic contest.
Eccles made a poor kick off but took the opportunity to make amends by wining the first scrum against the head and continued to apply attacking pressure on Douglas, keeping possession inside the visitor’s territory for the opening minutes. Douglas momentarily moved play over the halfway line but were soon forced to scramble their defence when Eccles centre Byron Read burst through the line on the right flank, inside his own half, and charged upfield. Fortune and Murphy raced up to offer inside support but a strong fend off and strong running saw him power through the tackling to finish with a lung-busting score in the corner; completed with a sweetly struck conversation | 8' 7-0 | ECCLES TRY (Read) CONV (Holland).
The attacking momentum was with Eccles and the game remained inside the visitor's half. From a line out just outside the 22, caught by Spooner, possession was moved by Holland and Wright infield to Read and then Mulligan who disrupted the Douglas defensive line, before the ball was fired back to the right by Wright with a 20m bullet pass to Parkinson, passed to Hooker Eaton on his shoulder who used fast hands to offload to the Gavinator outside, who raced into the 22 and swerved through the cover defence to score a superb try in the corner | 14' 12-0 | ECCLES TRY (Ackers-Johnson).
Following the restart Eccles retained possession and from line out inside the 22, successfully used a driving maul to advance their attack with Eaton carrying the ball to within 5 meters of the line. The Forwards sustained the pressure and Lloyd, a late call up from the 3XV to replace the injured Hulbert in the second row, was unfortunate to spill the ball with the glory of a debut try beckoning. Douglas exited with a boot but Eccles returned the ball to the edge of visitor’s 22. Holland's pass missed its target and bounced past Fortune into the hands of Ackers-Johnson who was alert to the opportunity and cut inside from his wing through the Douglas defence on a diagonal line into the 22, where his dancing footwork turned the two remaining opponents inside out before dotting down between the posts for a brilliant score | 20” 19-0 | ECCLES TRY (Ackers-Johnson) CONV (Holland).
Early success saw Eccles slide into complacency and Douglas forced the hosts to defend for a sustained period. After 10 minutes of tackling Eccles tired and the visitor's persistence paid off with a well worked try in the corner; a cracking conversion kick for the extras brought the Vikings into the game just before the interval | 35” 19- 7. DOUGLAS TRY. CONV.
HT 19- 7
Douglas began the second half with renewed belief and seized their opportunity to swing the momentum in their favour. Eccles replaced Mulligan with Evans in the back row but it was not enough to redirect the flow of the game and some fairly weak tackling from Eccles resulted in a score for the visitors between the sticks. | 45' 19-14 | DOUGLAS TRY. CONV.
Suddenly things were not looking as rosy for Eccles who were now under pressure by a resurgent Douglas and the error count began to rise. An exit kick from Wright failed to find its target and play returned back inside the Eccles 22 from where Douglas attacked and were held up in the left corner by a determined defence on 50’. Eccles replaced Loosehead Campbell with Thomas at 55’ but remained fixed in their own territory. At 60’ the game was stopped by the match official, Mr John Pemberton, for a head injury to Lloyd, who was concussed and left the field to be replaced by Mulligan. Douglas continued to probe for gaps in the tiring Eccles defence and eventually succeeded in breaking through in the left corner to even the score and then take the lead with a superb conversation kick | 65” 19- 21 | DOUGLAS TRY. CONV.
Eccles continued to struggle inside thier own territory and briefly regained possession through hard graft but a weary pass from Holland to Wright resulted in a knock on, centre field, inside the 22. From the resulting scrum Douglas extended thier lead, scoring in the right corner | 71' 19- 28 | DOUGLAS TRY, CONV.
Danny Holland was replaced by Sam Long at Scrum-Half and Eccles had 9 minutes to fight back and find the scores they needed to rescue the points. Eccles attacked with intensity with Read continuing to do the punishing work of breaking the gain line. A high tackle to Parkinson on the left wing led to a penalty kicked to the corner. The line out catch and drive was well executed and the ball moved to the middle of the pitch where another penalty was quickly tapped by Fortune and shifted quickly back to the left corner where the unstoppable loosehead Thomas crashed through to score! A marvellous strike by Parkinson, slotted through the sticks from out wide set up an exciting finish to the game | 76” 26-28 | ECCLES TRY (Thomas) CONV (Parkinson).
What a game. Superb entertainment. Terrific effort from both teams, battling it out to the very end. Going ahead 19-0, going behind 19-28 then two late tries in the final minutes to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat is not for the faint hearted. Eccles move up to 8th and will need to tighten things up next Saturday when they travel to Liverpool to face Waterloo, who sit joint top of the table with an unbeaten record.
