Firwood Waterloo kept their unbeaten home record intact with a 27-14 home win against fellow promotion hopefuls Northwich.
Going into the game it was Waterloo in third against Northwich in second with the hosts knowing a home win would be vital in such a tight race for the play-offs.
Loo lost their last game the week before and it looked like they may be carrying that form into the game as they found themselves on the back foot early doors.
Northwich took advantage and scored the first try of the game as the ball was kicked forward allowing their playing to pounce onto it and touch the ball over the line with the conversion being scored.
They then followed this up with a second try soon after to pile misery on the home fans and again scored the try to make the score 14-0 to the away side.
Loo did respond and started to get the ball forward more but poor passing was letting them down. Waterloo’s Alex Ward was a standout player producing two great runs to trouble the Northwich defence.
Loo did get their reward though as Jacob Russel as Northwich were caught short out wide allowing Russel to pick up the ball and run half the length of the pitch to score, however Darragh O’Brien missed the conversion.
Loo then continued to keep up their momentum and just before half time got another try this time from Kurt Riley after the ball broke from the scrum allowing him to pick it up and power past the Northwich defender.
O’Brien missed his conversion again meaning the half time score was Firwood Waterloo- 10 Northwich-14.
The second half saw Loo make a strong start again and early on they scored their 3rd try of the game through Jake Hawkins with O’Brien scoring his first conversion afterwards, putting Loo ahead for the first time in the match.
Northwich did respond though and the game became very even with neither side being able to carve out an opportunity.
Northwich kept giving away penalties and in the end Loo punished them for this with O’Brien going for the three and scoring to make the score 20-14.
This set up a nervy final ten minutes at the Memorial Ground with Northwich throwing everything at the hosts.
However, Waterloo handled the game very well and managed to relieve the tension of the supporters with Darragh O’Brien scoring the 4th and final try of the game, catching Northwich out as they pushed payers forward.
The game ended Firwood Waterloo 27 Northwich 14.
After the match Manager Stuart Turner says once his team got going the result was never in doubt.
“When you are playing a team like this you expect to be under pressure.
“We conceded a couple of unusual try’s but then we got into the game we had a couple of opportunities in the first half that were really tight.
“We scored a few then I really never had a doubt although they are always hard to break down, they always work hard, they took a lot of injuries but still gave us a tough game.
“It’s all in our hands really, if we keep winning we should make the play-offs, we’ve got some tough games but I’m confident.”
The result also means Loo are still unbeaten at home this season and captain Jack Weir says this run gives the players great confidence when playing at home.
“We go out and we know we are solid at home and we can take anyone on, top of the league, bottom of the league whereas last year we would have lost little games like that because of game management, bit of nerves too in certain situations but we have learnt from last year and got better.”
The result means that Loo are up to second five points behind top of the league Burnage. Their next game is away at Altrincham on the 29th February.
