Morpeth 39 Lymm...18

THE Long trip to Northumberland did not appear to have adversely affected Lymm's performance as they produced their brightest opening spell of the season.

They dominated territorially and Chris Elliott put them in front with two penalties but the strong start did not last.

Morpeth responded with a penalty and gained the lead with a converted try when they took a tapped penalty close to the line.

Lymm replied by winning a scrum against the head and a kick to the left corner led to Andy Holloway take a scoring pass from Nick Rowe.

An excellent conversion kick by Elliott put Lymm 13-8 ahead but Morpeth regained the lead just before half-time when a succession of five metre scrums led to a try from a rolling maul.

In an inspired passage of play defence was then turned into attack when Morpeth failed to make touch inside the Lymm 22.

The ball was worked through numerous pairs of hands before winger Keir Woods ran strongly to the corner to restore Lymm's lead at 18-15.

But three converted tries and a penalty killed all hopes of a Lymm comeback.

Tomorrow, Saturday, Lymm play Birkenhead Park at Beechwood in the second round of the NPI Cup.

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.