Blackpool RUFC 7 Ashton under Lyne 43

10:03am Monday 28th January 2008

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The nominated referee did not arrive for this fixture so, despite Blackpool having a qualified referee in their ranks and pleading from the league secretary, Ashton under Lyne elected to play a friendly only.

At the end of the match they must have regretted their decision as they ran out winners by 43 - 7 so they have it all to do again when they come back to Blackpool to play the league fixture.

Blackpool astounded even themselves when, within 23 seconds of the kick off 2nd row Tom Cockcroft stormed over to open the scoring under the posts giving stand off Sean Donnelly an easy conversion to open the score to 7 - 0 in their favour.

The euphoria was short lived however when the visitors opened up their account in the 5th minute with an unconverted try.

Thus the stage was set for the same story from Blackpool with their heads going down again.

The score went to a convincing 31 - 7 to the visitors at half time and they must have thought that they were in for a feast of scoring in the second half.

No one knows what was said to the players at half time but in the 2nd half they put on a much better show and managed to limit Ashton to only two tries one of which was converted.

Again it was evident that the Blackpool side needed to come to the training sessions to try and overcome their weaknesses.

The main point of concern was the lack of tackling especially in the backs.

They travel away next week to play Eccles in a re-arranged fixture and have been instructed by the league to play last week's postponed fixture at the first available date in March.