Heaton Moor Senior Colts 22-22 Kirkby Lonsdale
Heaton Moor Senior Colts will face Lymm in the Halbro North West Colts League Cup final after winning their semi-final on tries scored against Kirkby Lonsdale.
The visitors can consider themselves extremely unlucky and will wonder how they let a 10-point lead slip in the last 10 minutes.
And throughout, it looked like they had more appetite for the battle as Moor’s three-week inactivity after their Lancashire Cup exit seemed to take its toll.
But again credit to this Moor side, who showed incredible character to somehow grab their place in the final – their fourth in four seasons.
Kirkby started quickly and had a try on the board within the first minute.
Joe Kilbride overturned the visitors and Moor looked well set but a loose pass fell into the grateful arms of the Kirkby winger who sprinted 60 yards and despite an excellent tackle by Emilio Ramirez, the ball was recycled and it was first blood to the visitors.
The home team hit back after 15 minutes, Kilbride driving over in the corner after incessant pressure.
Hooker Fred McIlwraith added a second try eight minutes later, Nick Tenney scoring the conversion.
Kirkby then scored two converted tries, each one the result of some poor tackling, before the break, leaving Moor facing up to the second half with a seven-point deficit.
The start of the second half was rather scrappy, Kirkby holding their lines well and hitting Moor on the counter-attack.
Again, the home side’s suspect indiscipline looked like it was going to cost them with a couple of silly yellow cards.
Kirkby stretched their lead to ten points with 15 minutes remaining, but Oscar Elvin and James Bellis were in no mood to let the season fall away so easily and several breaks by both seemed to instill some confidence.
Cameron Kilbride, a half-time replacement, was also becoming influential and a great run out of defence resulted in Trevor Chappell-Danson scoring a brilliant team try.
Kilbride surprisingly missed his conversion but Moor’s tails were suddenly up.
There were only about three minutes left on the clock when Chappell-Danson doubled his tally to level the game for a stunning fightback although there was now confusion as to what lay ahead.
But due to the try count in their favour, 4-3, Moor had booked a final appearance and another big day to end a great run for this team.
