By then the game was long gone. The home side went ahead in the third minute when they forced a line out in the corner and prop Steve Clarke bulldozed over with fly half. Steve O'Connor got the first of a number of excellent conversions.

The home side were keen on rolling mauls which was probably fortuitous because, when they got it out wide, they were running through our defence at will. They did move it on 20 minutes and scrum half Alan Hesketh went over with some style. O'Connor made it 14-0.

Three minutes later centre Nick Wright finished off a five man move and it was 21-0 and game over. Winger Paul Kay then went over in the corner and Hesketh, who was a thorn in our side all afternoon, sped through a yawning gap in midfield to make it 31-0 at the break.

With the strong breeze at our backs we made a better fist of it in the second half. John Painter and Chocky Davies were having excellent games but our line outs were simply awful. We lost five our own throws in the second half to hand the home side plenty of possession. Fortunately the tackling was stronger and we restricted them to a pushover try on 55 minutes, a try by No 8 Lee Hodges on 70 and in the last minute a break on the left which No 5 Ben O'Rourke finished off.

Carlo was sin binned on 53 minutes when Hesketh, who had gone on the wing, cut inside and the prop left his arm trailing and brought him down.

We should have scored while Carlo was in the bin when Henry Tones charged after a loose ball and ref Chris Challinor was signalling a try until the ball was scooped away from Henry at the final moment.

Carlo didn't return after his sin bin. Michael White came into the second row with Paul Rudd moving to flanker. Stabs came on for the last ten to replace the limping Tones with Darren Thomas going to full back and Peter Hodgson into his usual back row.

The best thing about the game from a West point of view was the fact that we gave away very few penalties with O'Connor not able to take any three pointers whatsoever.

West Hodgson, Barff, Milne, Connolly [capt], Dono, Tighe, Thomas, Painter [Capt], Cullinane, Robinson [White 63], Rudd, Davies, Tones [Stabler 70, Sawyer, Bennett.

Bench: Stabler, Baggs, White.

Birkenhead Park Peter Hart, Martin Sutton, Steve Dodd, Nick Wright, Paul Kay, Steve O'Connor, Alan Hesketh, Phil Reynolds, Christian Jones, Steve Clarke, Jimmy Gray, Ben O'Rourke, Chris Planchant, Jon Shudall, Lee Hodgers [Capt].

Reps: Brian Coyle, Peter Holce, Jason Gilbert.