Ellesmere Port 31Holmes Chapel 3
THE Oilers collected their fourth victory in five South Lancs/Cheshire Division Three fixtures on Saturday.
After the recent wet weather, plenty of hard work had to be put in to make the pitch at Whitby Sports and Social Club playable.
The hosts started brightly and scored inside the first four minutes after dominating the early forward exchanges.
Port’s No8 Jim Shinton picked from the base of a scrum and fed the ball to winger Rob Finlay who then returned the favour for Shinton to barge over the line. Fly-half Chris Carbutt slotted the conversion to make it 7-0.
Holmes Chapel replied with a penalty but winger Craig Jones then forced his way over the try-line for the Oilers.
Carbutt missed the difficult conversion.
With the first half drawing top a close, Carbutt surprised Chapel with a quickly-taken tap penalty which resulted in a try for fullback Ant Jones in the corner.
Carbutt missed the conversion so the Port went into the half-time break 17-3 ahead.
The hosts wasted no in extending their lead after the restart, scoring in the 41st minute through centre Lee Craddock, who burst through the visitors’ defence and touched down under the posts.
Carbutt added the extras to make it 24-3.
For the remainder of the game Port continued to look the more threatening team.
With a little more composure and less panic, the home side could have bagged a further three tries in the final 15 minutes.
They had to make do with just the one, however.
After some sustained pressure, James Callaghan barged through the Chapel defence to score his side’s fifth try of thr afternoon.
Carbutt’s conversion made it 31-3.
Port then took opportunity to make several substitutions and the game pattern became more disrupted, meaning there were no further additions to the score in the closing stages.
The Rees Developments man of the match award went to Carbutt.
The Oilers are away to Knutsford this Saturday.
Ellesmere Port 2nds ran out worthy 38-20 winners at Wirral in Division Five West.
