Golborne topple league leaders

With former St Helens and Swinton winger Jason Roach making his debut, Golborne were forced to use one of their smallest pitches because of poor ground conditions.

Coach Dave Tickle and his players spent many hours forking and sanding the pitch just to get the game underway but their efforts were amply rewarded.

It was Golborne who posed all the early questions as they totally dominated the early territorial positions. Haydock defended well and although Golborne had them under pressure in their own half, they refused to crack.

Haydock took the lead on 10 minutes completely against the run of play when they intercepted a Golborne pass and raced 70 meters for an unconverted try.

It was 32 minutes into the game before Golborne took the lead when Leon Davy finished of some good teamwork with a try converted by Stuart Arkwright.

Haydock started the second half well and showed why they were the divisions league leaders as they put Golborne under constant pressure and after 10 minutes of the second half gone they regained the lead with a converted try.

Again Golborne had to raise their game but like the first half they found it difficult to break down the Haydock defence. But with 16 minutes remaining, and after another good spell of pressure, a neat little grubber kick on the sixth tackle by Arkwright was pounced on by the Golborne hooker James Byrne for a try converted by Arkwright to give Golborne the lead 12-10.

Golborne finished the game the stronger, just failing to add to the score several times in the worsening conditions.

Arkwight took the man of the match for the second week running with James Byrne second and centre Craig Parr, who returned after injury, third.

Second rows Kevin Marsden and Chris Woods finished the games top tacklers with 22 and 21 tackles respectively.

The under 16s had a good 40-6 victory over Barrow in the first round of the National Cup.