Rifle’s perfect 10!

HEADS UP . . . Failsworth’s Tom Wood (left) and Lee Mallitt clash.

Rifle ‘A’ 5, Failsworth Athletic 0

RIFLE ‘A’ made it 10 wins out of 10 in their defence of the Midas Plumbing and Heating Oldham Sunday League Jack Abbott Premier Division title with a 5-0 rout at Failsworth Athletic.

It was a case of wet, wet, wet and mud, glorious mud on a cold, windy and rainy afternoon at Clayton playing fields.

The scoreline suggests Failsworth were torn apart, but that wasn’t the case. Nathan Eastmond’s expertly-struck free kick from 20 yards put Rifle ahead after 15 minutes, before Ryan Hobin’s deflected drive from 16 yards made it 2-0 10 minutes later. But Athletic, without leading goalscorer Niall Sultan, never gave up and to their credit, put up a real fight.

Nonetheless, Ryan Fagan netted direct from a corner-kick after 56 minutes as Athletic pressed for a way into the game.

They almost made it, too, as first Jack Turnbull and then Michael Berrisford crashed angled drives against the Rifle crossbar, before Hobin’s 20-yards daisy-cutter skimmed the mud to make it 4-0 as Athletic pressed for a way into the game.

There was no way back at that point and, as if to sum up Athletic’s day, Rifle keeper Lee Mullen

produced a magnificent save to keep out Reece Lyndon’s spot-kick.

Another top moment came with a few minutes left, as Eastmond danced around four defenders to fire the ball home from 14 yards.