The win, combined with Cleckheaton’s draw with Birkenhead, establishes West in 6th place in the table and continues their impressive run of form at Brinkburn, having only lost one league game on home soil in the whole of 2008. Let’s hope 2009 sees that run continue (and one or two away wins thrown in would be nice).

January’s first game is a trip to Morley, the one team spoiling that home record, and will not only be an opportunity to avenge that result back in late September but also to draw level on points with the hosts. Before that there’s the small matter of a festive ‘friendly’ with Rovers, sure to be an explosive encounter and well worth a trip down to Brinkburn on Friday.

Back to today’s game and the first half contained very little worth writing about. Dominated by errors and scrums, two penalties each for Moss and Tom Cruse were the only scores, leaving the sides tied at 6 when the whistle went for the break.

Whatever was in the half time drinks certainly picked up both teams. Another shot from Cruse pushed Stockport ahead two minutes in but West responded with the first try of the afternoon. A turnover on their own 22 led to a counter attack with Dominic Morrison, Gareth Kerr and Jamie Connolly all involved before Darren Thomas fed the scoring pass to Andy Cheslin who finished well in the corner.

Stockport bounced back on 50 minutes with a try from Greg Newton, converted by Cruse for a 16-11 lead but just 5 minutes later the scores were level again. Quick ball off the top of the line-out was well used by the backs, Peter Hodgson cutting a straight line through the defence to score just to the right of the posts. Moss somehow managed to strike the post with the easiest of kicks but Cruse also failed with a fairly straightforward penalty on 66 minutes to keep the scores locked together at 16.

The tie was finally broken by Kerr, superbly taking advantage of a move from the base of a scrum on half-way. The winger showed great pace down the touchline before cutting inside the full-back and crossing for the try. Moss made no mistake with the conversion this time but a penalty opportunity a minute after the restart allowed Cruse to peg back the lead, West now 23-19 in-front.

With 5 minutes to play West looked to clinch the game when Darren Thomas chipped through and did enough to force full-back James Drew to lose the ball allowing Iain Dixon to collect for the simplest of scores. Moss’ conversion extended the lead to two tries but still the game was far from over.

Rather than looking for territory after the restart West threw a speculative pass towards the touch line which went loose and Dan Eccles pounced, racing up the touchline to score, Cruse once again nailing a difficult conversion. Thankfully West’s tactics improved after that, the forwards securing possession and letting the time tick away. All that good work was almost undone though, when, with time expired, Moss launched a speculative drop goal which was horribly struck and gifted Stockport a counter-attacking opportunity. Thankfully for West, and for Moss, the attack didn’t get beyond half-way and the ball eventually found it’s way in to touch for the hosts to clinch the win.

So two points from an important game will bring some early Christmas cheer to all West followers, but they’ll also be demanding a win over Rovers on Boxing Day to ensure the festive celebrations aren’t dampened. With Davy Tighe already on the side-lines after an ankle operation, and Darren Thomas leaving the field with a nasty looking ankle problem minutes from the end, Paul Williamson may well come into contention at scrum-half for the derby game.


West: I Dixon, Kerr, Hodgson, Connolly, A Cheslin, Moss, Thomas (Butcher), Carr, A Dixon, Stewart (Norris), I Robinson, T Dixon, D Boatman, D Morrison, Sawyer.

Tries: A Cheslin, Hodgson, Kerr, I Dixon
Cons: Moss 2
Pens: Moss 2
Sin-bin: Sawyer

Stockport: James Drew, Joe Cormack, Craig Cooper, Greg Newton, Dan Eccles, Steve Pearson, Andy Rimmer, Tom Cruse, Alex Hooley, Jan Erik Anderson, Graham Chenoweth, Dave Marwick, Hugo Corbett, Tim Oakes, Peter Bredenkamp.
Reps: Zak Hammonds, Kieran Hibbs, Nigel Burge-Jones
Stockport:

Tries: Newton, Eccles
Cons: Cruse 2
Pens: Cruse 4
Sin-bin: Newton