Tarleton romp to convincing victory over North Manchester

Oct 25 2012 by Neil Jones, Ormskirk Advertiser

TARLETON moved six points clear at the top of the table with a 77-3 thrashing of North Manchester at the weekend.

Having suffered defeat in this fixture last year, Steve Wood and his squad were determined that history was not about to repeat itself.

Their cause was helped when, on four minutes, a promising break by Max Skofic was halted by a swinging arm.

Skofic was lost to concussion, but North Manchester were down to 14 players as the red card was produced. The resulting penalty was missed but from the drop out the ball found its way to Jack Skofic, who gave a well timed pass to Archie Skofic to open the scoring.

Tarleton then gave away a needless penalty, reducing the score to 7-3. Ben Kelly, though, converted a penalty to cancel that out.

On 18 minutes Archie Skofic grabbed his second try of the day. This was followed by his hat-trick six minutes later. Tarleton led by 22 – 3.

Jack Skofic got his first try of the day to earn Tarleton a bonus point. and Rob Bramhall then broke through to score twice in quick succession to make the score 43-3 at half time.

In the second half the story was pretty much the same. Skofic grabbed his second of the day and a good driving maul saw Dave Gordon slip the ball to Jon Tyrer who put the ball down to score another try.

Archie Skofic then ran 70 metres to score his fourth try, while another try came from Ben Kelly who went over for his first try.

Tarleton maintained the pressure, allowing Ben Kelly go over for his second try. Tarleton took another 7 points thanks to Archie Skofic’s 5th. try of the day and Ben Kelly’s boot.

The 77-3 win means Tarleton are now 6 points clear at the top and will look to maintain their impetus at home next week against Mossley Hill.