Highton salutes ‘excellent response’

Photo: PICTURE by CHRIS SUNDERLAND

BREAKING CLEAR . . . Waterhead’s Alan Williamson powers through the Eastmoor Dragons line.

RUGBY LEAGUE:

A FIRST-HALF blitz from Waterhead effectively saw off high-flying Eastmoor Dragons in National Conference League Division Two... and served to whet the appetite for a crunch game next week.

On home turf at Waterhead Park, Garry Highton’s men took a 20-0 lead into the interval thanks to a try and four goals from stand-off Terry Fitzgerald and scores from second-row pair Sam Wilkin and Craig Highton.

The promotion hunting Wakefield outfit hit back in the second half.

Michael Jedynak contributed a hat-trick of tries, to which Alan Mulcahy added one goal, before Fitzgerald asserted control once more with a penalty and a second try of the afternoon.

Darren Nixon ran home Waterhead’s fifth try of the game and Fitzgerald’s boot did the job again before the Dragons grabbed a consolation score through Richard Colley, Mulcahy converting in the last minute for a final score of 34-20 in the home team’s favour.

“We spoke about the errors that we made last week against Ovenden,” said coach Garry Highton, referring to a disappointing 54-10 reverse.

“The response was excellent. We stuck to our game plan to the letter and it worked for us.

“It was a good performance and every member of the team deserves a pat on the back.”

Highton is now targeting a fifth win in six matches on Saturday.

To manage that, he will have to find a way past a travelling Hunslet Warriors side who pushed Oldham Roughyeds all the way in a recent Challenge Cup tie at the Whitebank Stadium.

“We are really looking forward to that one,” Highton added.


OLDHAM St Anne’s suffered a narrow away defeat, going down 30-24 at Milford to increase their relegation worries in Division One.

Spirited Saints performed well and it took a last-minute try from the Leeds side to secure the points.

Jordan White scored the opener early on for Mick Cashin’s side, with Kiel Lancashire converting.

A period of heavy pressure near the Saints line was halted by some stout defending before Josh Parle registered with Ryan Oxtoby converting.

Lancashire darted in for a long-range interception try of his own which was he also converted, but the first of Ben Hood’s hat-trick followed in the corner and Oxtoby’s goal made it 12-12 at half-time.

Hood then ran in twice more and Parle’s second was added to by an Oxtoby conversion to take Milford 26-12 up.

Skipper Danny Kay and man-of-the-match White stepped up and in the final quarter Saints crossed twice through Greg Worrall and Luke Wallace.

Two Lancashire conversions made it 26-24 with 10 minutes left and Saints were in with a shout before a last-gasp James Coates try and Oxtoby goal.