Early joy turns to despair for Rangers

Photo: Paul Sterritt

DIVING IN . . . Jake O'Grady, of Waterhead, reaches for the line against West Bowling.

SADDLEWORTH Rangers got off to a perfect start at Askam . . . but it didn't last for very long.

Andy Joy went over for an early try for the visitors in Cumbria and when Josh Bradbury kicked both a conversion and a penalty six minutes in, Rangers were sitting pretty at 8-0 up.

That was when Askam woke up, though, and the hosts went on to rattle in 50 points without reply in their Kingstone Press National Conference League Division Two fixture.

It was a tough afternoon for the Greenfield club, who suffered a major blow before kick-off when top points scorer Ben Whitehead suffered a knee injury that required coach Craig Farrimond - who wasn't in the original squad - to play at stand-off, with the named bench full of forwards.

Tom Hopkins got the first reply for Askam after 12 minutes, Kristian Tyson kicking the first of his four goals, and in the lead-up to half-time, Jake Spedding and Ben Lewney both cross the whitewash for a 16-8 advantage as the teams changed ends.

Matters turned from bad to worse for Rangers when second row Tom Robinson suffered an ankle injury early on in the second half.

Jack Cairns, Dan Sayle, Tom Butler (two), Spedding and Tyson all added further tries, with three Adam Jackson goals pushing Askam, who played some excellent rugby, to a comfortable victory.

Rangers, now seventh in the table, will now need to dust themselves down quickly ready for the away game at second-bottom Leigh East tomorrow night (7.30pm kick-off).

WATERHEAD Warriors were beaten at home, losing 40-18 to West Bowling in Division Three.

The Warriors could not recover from the early setback of falling 16-0 down after a quarter of an hour and went on to lose for a third time in five games.

Waterhead's tries came from Jamie Mayall, Jake O'Grady and Pat Toft, with Mayall kicking three conversions.

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