A BUMPER President's Day crowd witnessed a Christmas cracker of a display at Moss Farm on Saturday.
Northwich hit their best form of the season and confirmed that they have drastically under-achieved so far.
While it was a derby, the two clubs are tied together by more than geography and both teams had been humbled by their pre-match meeting with John Blower, who was tragically injured in the same fixture at Warrington 12 months ago.
He paid tribute to the Warrington club and community who have fundraised actively on his behalf. Northwich president John Cosgrove also accepted on behalf of the club Chris Dale's framed England youth shirt.
These two events seemed to inspire the Northwich players and they entered the fray looking much more confident than their fellow strugglers.
Over-exuberance by Northwich resulted in a couple of early penalties and Warrington's Richard Eden drew first blood with an easy shot at goal.
Northwich back-row player Dean Thompson broke from a subsequent scrum and fed stand-off Chaz Wood, who broke through the defence to put Dale over for the first of his two tries.
He added the conversion but, in general, he had a bad day with the boot and missed two easy penalties and another conversion.
Although Northwich were dominating the lineouts, it was a sloppy slap down which allowed Paul Thompson to seize on a loose ball and regain the initiative for Warrington. Eden failed with the conversion and from then it was all Northwich.
Kolo Fifita and Dale showed some blistering pace and it was only final tackles that prevented both from crossing the line. It was a superb move which saw Chris James score under the posts, only for Dale to fluff his conversion before the break.
Northwich lost Fifita and winger Andy Allen to injuries but substitute Ricky Evans scored in the corner with his first touch. And although Dale missed the difficult conversion, he soon made amends with a blistering break down the middle to score between the sticks. He converted to put the game beyond Warrington's reach at 24-8.
Rob Heath and Gez Gough scored further tries, both converted by Dale to give Northwich their biggest win of the season.
Dale was the pick of the backs and hooker John Brotherton was also outstanding.
Northwich now have eight points and are at Rochdale on Saturday.
Juniors: Northwich U13s beat West Park 46-10 (Underhill 2, Turrell, Williams, Barlow, Phillips, Sheppard, Bridle tries, George 3, Woodhead cons); U12s drew with Sandbach 14-14 (Jack Woolley, David Jackson tries) and lost to Warrington 42-0; U11s beat Sandbach 19-0 (Jordan Dodd, Joe Maddocks, Henry Bellis tries; Sam Hunt 2 cons) and beat Warrington 33-0 (Maddocks 4, Dodd, Bellis; Hunt pen).
