SEVEN-TRY Macclesfield did enough in defeating Waterloo to keep them ahead of the pack in Two North.

In the top spots, Macc, Caldy and Loughborough Students are putting daylight between them and the chasers.

Ross Winney opened the scoring with a penalty but Waterloo registered the first try of the afternoon when James O’Brien touched down following a neat chip through the defence. Liam McGovern converted.

Lead

A second Winney penalty was followed by Macclesfield’s first try when winger Matt Simpson crossed the line, Winney’s conversion giving the Blues a lead they were not to surrender.

Waterloo’s discipline let them down when first No 8 Njike Tehakoute and then O’Brien were binned for a technical offence and dissent respectively.

While Waterloo were depleted the Blues scored two more converted tries – both thanks to livewire scrum-half Chris Townsend – to give Macc a commanding 27-7 advantage.

Early Waterloo pressure at the start of the second period came to nothing. It was Macclesfield who increased the lead when winger Josh Fowles outpaced the Waterloo defence to the line.

Waterloo struck back with O’Brien’s second try to give them a sniff of a chance with 20 minutes left but as they tired it was Macclesfield who finished the stronger.

Further tries came from Chris Jones – after he wrongfooted the defence on a 40-metre sprint – and then Fowles crossed again.

Both of these were converted by Winney, who scarcely put a foot wrong all afternoon with a faultless display of dead-ball kicking.

Superb

The game closed with possibly a try-of-the-season contender, a superb running move involving seven pairs of hands over some 50 metres which ended with Tony Howcroft touching down in the corner.

Winney put the icing on the cake with a touchline conversion to make it nine kicks out of nine.

Brendan Thomas, rugby operations manager, said: "While we are always happy with a win and bonus point after the game the squad still questioned themselves in the dressing room over the things that went wrong.

"This is healthy for the future as we are all looking to improve."