Woodburn the hero as Hawcoat Park earn last-gasp victory at Eccles

PAUL Woodburn’s last-gasp try earned Hawcoat Park a vital win in their North Lancs/Cumbria League relegation battle.

It was fitting that Woodburn should score the winning touchdown with the last play of the game, as the big forward had been outstanding thoughout.

Taking a crash ball, Woodburn showed great determination to force his way through the strong Eccles defence to score. Fly-half George Smith held his nerve to slot over the conversion, which was needed to secure the one-point victory.

The game had started badly for Park when the Eccles fly-half booted over a 35-metre penalty goal in the first minute.

The exchanges became even, with both teams testing each other out up front, and it became clear this was going to be a closely-contested fixture between two anxious teams who knew the importance of the game.

Ten minutes in, Hawcoat scored their first and best try. Grady Slater made a 40-metre run and timed his pass perfectly to the supporting Ash Mowat.

He carried on the move before also timing his pass well to winger Rodney Odondi, who showed his pace to touch down. Smith slotted over the conversion.

Park finished the first half strongly, and after 35 minutes another good Slater break and good work by Callum Ramsay, saw Smith almost touch down under a pile of bodies, but the referee was unsighted and had to give a held-up decision.

However, there was time for Smith to boot over a 30-metre penalty goal, to give the visitors a 10-6 advantage.

With the wind behind them after the break, there was confidence in the Maroon and Whites camp that this was a game they could go on and win.

Eccles, though, had other ideas and they came out a different side in the second half.

There was a desperation about Hawcoat’s play as we took wrong options and made mistakes and Eccles were certainly the better side in the first 20 minutes or so and scored three unconverted tries to lead 21-10. The first came when near the Park line, with their back row slipping through some ordinary tackling to touch down.

The next two were scored through the centres when stretching the ball out wide.

With ten minutes to Park looked completely out of it but with skipper Brad Morrow urging his troops on they showed great determination to claw their back into it, making good use of their line-out strength.

From a line-out 30 metres from the Eccles line, Mowat took a clean catch.

Hawcoat got their driving maul going to good effect, and with the likes of James Howden and winger James Dallimore joining the surge, there was no way Eccles were going to stop the drive, as Danny White touched down wide out.

With the clock ticking down, Park attempted to repeat the line-out on a couple of occasions. With the referee shouting last play, Hawcoat felt the line-out drive was pulled down and they were looking for a penalty try.

However, quick thinking by the hard-working Adam Grainger saw him slip a short pass to Woodburn, and he did the rest.

The win lifts Hawcoat out of the three relegation places by one point over Eccles, but there are sure to be many more twists and turns to come before the end of the season.