Northwich 23 Sandbach 7: EVER improving Northwich turned in one of their most convincing performances of the season, at Moss Farm on Saturday.
They won emphatically, bringing their South Lancs and Cheshire League tally to 13 points and now require just two more wins to kill off fears of relegation.
Skipper Jonathan Simpson led from the front and his own performance was inspired by the try which put Northwich in front.
Steve Campbell had also kicked a penalty and it was Sandbach who then claimed their points, though they never actually crossed the home tryline.
Rather, they were awarded a dubious penalty try when Northwich were deemed to have deliberately collapsed a Sandbach scrum five metres from their own tryline. Tom Hughes kicked the straight-forward conversion.
The penalty try spurred Northwich into aggressive mode and from a scrum on the Sandbach 10-metre line Graham Robinson surged forward and was well supported by Yisemkulu Teyise who then created the space to feed Steve Taylor who cleverly drew his man to give winger Sam Naylor a clear run to the line. Stand off Lohane Kiewiet missed the conversion and Sandbach held Northwich to 13-7 at half time.
In the last quarter the incessant Northwich pressure resulted in Kiewiet scoring on the end of a flowing forwards move. Campbell missed a relatively easy conversion but the game was put beyond Sandbach's reach when centre Joe Wood made a clever break to set up try number four for Northwich's other wing Adam Bown.
Northwich 1st XV have no fixture on Saturday.
