Rosslyn Park 35 Macclesfield 12

Macclesfield travelled south to London to face high-flying Rosslyn Park looking for their third away victory of the season.

Some poor first-half defending from Macclesfield meant the home side had secured the win by half-time, and despite a strong second-half performance the game was won after 35 minutes.

The Blues, who came away pointless, were unchanged in the backline from the previous weekend but had a slight reshuffle in the pack. They lost Billy Robinson to a late fitness test which meant Shane Heffernan stepped up to start, with Josh Hearn coming onto the bench.

Ben Jones dropped to the bench, being replaced by Franky Barker, with Mike Finnemore moving into the second row.

The Blues took a hit early on when they lost Heffernan to a nasty looking injury, meaning the inexperienced Hearn would have to play the vast majority of this contest opposite an England Under-20 international, Alex Lundberg.

Hearn stepped up to the plate though and more than held his own in the scrum.

The hosts opened the scoring on 10 minutes in a rather bizarre way.

They certainly had the shove on in the scrum and were heading for the Blues’ try line when the referee walked under the posts and awarded the penalty try.

This decision was made even though this was the first infringement by the Blues at the scrum.

Matt King

Macclesfield responded immediately, winger and leading tryscorer Matt King reading the kick off perfectly to take the ball and sprint home to touch down in the corner and take the scoreline to 7-5.

The hosts capped a crazy few minutes with another score of their own. They regained possession from the kick-off and set up a well worked move to put winger Charlie Broughton over the line to extend the lead to nine.

King was then sent to the sinbin on 17 minutes for not retreating 10 metres after a penalty and tackling the ball carrier.

And Park made the depleted Blues pay immediately. They kicked to the corner and, from the resulting lineout, barged their way over the line.

Fly-half Scott Spedding kept up his impressive kicking display to maximise the gap between the two sides at 21-5.

Macc defended the rest of the sinbin period very well but on 32 minutes Rosslyn Park were in again, this time full-back Nev Edwards spotting space on the blind side and having an easy run-in under the posts to wrap up their bonus point and make it 28-5 at the break.

The hosts came out after half-time and got off to a flyer, scoring within three minutes with a well-worked try scored out wide.

The score was converted to take the gap between the two sides to 30 points.

Macc fought back hard for the remainder of the second half and defended brilliantly, frustrating the hosts whose error count was on the rise due to stern Blues defence.

The visitors got a consolation score eight minutes from time when lock forward Dave Marwick read the game well to intercept a loose pass.

Knowing he didn’t have the pace to run it in, Marwick found King who cut a line and received the offload to run in his 15th try of the season.

Though they ended it on a high the match had already been taken out of their grasp and it ended 35-12.