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Vickers shines as North hop to cup win

21/10/2004

Rugby Union

NORTH Manchester travelled to Preston last weekend to face a strong Grasshoppers XV in a cup clash.

They came through the test with flying colours.

North were without fly-half John Eady and scrum-half Tim Adam due to injuries. This meant changes had to be made to the team which had beaten Carrington the previous weekend.

Andy Donley went to scrum-half and James Hyland stepped into the fly-half position for the first time for the club.

The opening minutes were dictated by the packs and the deadlock was almost broken by a well-worked move by the North backs.

Unfortunately the "try" was disallowed for a double movement.

The scoring drought ended midway through the first half following some powerful mauling by the North forwards.

They enabled battle-hardened prop Colin Meredith to dive over in the corner for his first try of the season.

The conversion was missed and no further scores came before the half time whistle.

North conceded a penalty early in the second half and Preston converted to make the scores level.

North were soon back in front.

Excellent running by the backs finally paid off with a simple switch of play from 30 metres out.

Steven Donoghue finished off the well-worked overlap right in the corner to make it 10-3.

James Hyland added the difficult conversion from the right-hand touchline and that was the last score.

Substitutes Dominic Kevin Kenny and Gordon Morrison once again gave the captain something to think about with his starting line-up for the next game. They gave strong performances in the forwards.

There were also good showings from captain Dave Garvey and second-row Jason Malone, but the man-of-the-match award went to Dave Vickers for his strong running from fullback.

North meet Bolton at Tudor Lodge on Saturday, kick-off 3pm. They will be wearing a new kit sponsored by Pete Swales Electrical Contractors Limited.