Manchester were made up of a core squad of regular and more experienced players joined by some returning players and some making their debut.
Manchester started as they meant to go on by taking the ball to the opposition maintaining control at the break down and then passing the ball wide to TC who committed his opposite man and offloaded to Sackey who outstripped the sandbach winger and touched down in the corner, the conversion being made by Gavin Taylor. This feat was repeated after a strong manchester scrum following the reset. Sandbach came back into the game and pushed manchester hard for the remainder of the second half.
After the break manchester came back with renewed vigour instantly pushing sandbach into their 22, after a period of pressure Mikey a returning colt on his debut picked up from the back of a ruck five metres out and dotted the ball down between the posts. The conversion was made by Gavin Taylor. Manchester continued to pressurise Sandbach with the ball being passed out to Daisy who made a break around his opposite man and sprinted up the five meters, he jinked back inside and offloaded to TC who broke through a number of tackles to dive over the try line. Sandbach came back into the game kicking manchester back into their 22, after one such kick the ball was ran back at the sandbach players making the chase, with good support play manchester worked back up the pitch. Following good support work by the forwards Gavin Taylor spun the ball wide to Daisy who outran his opposite man to touch down in the corner.
Sandbach were not finished and from a period of scrappy play countered and made use of gap in manchester's otherwise successful defence dived over to score. Sandbach began to tire in in the last ten and manchester used this to full effect with Ollie Jones scoring from the back of a ruck from the ten metre line quickly followed by a good backs run around which resulted in Sackey getting his hat trick (jug yet to be supplied). Both converted by Gavin Taylor.
This was a great game showing what the seconds can do especially the good team work and support which lead to the tries. The new players had great games and I look forward to seeing them further integrated into the team this week against Broughton Park.