West Sutton 30

Widnes Albert 6

DESPITE a very good first-half performance, lack of match practice took its toll in the end as Sutton completed a comfortable victory.

It started well for the Albert with half-backs Griffiths and Horabin linking well, and forwards Hankin, Leech and Woollam making big inroads into the West Sutton defence and it came as no surprise when they took the lead when Danny Carter was held up short but managed to get the ball out to the supporting Richie O'Neill who went over for the try.

Dave Yeomans added the extras to make it 6-0.

After 35 minutes play sutton created an overlap for their winger to go over and then they added a penalty to make the scoreline all square at half-time at 6-6.

The second-half was a different story.

An early try following a kick through that should have been cleared gave Sutton the lead for the first time and they never looked back.

Too much lost possesion saw Sutton camped inside the Albert 25 and more tires followed as they built up a 20-6 lead.

The Albert worked hard to get back into the game but their heads were down and it was the home side who came back to score two further tries to run out winners by 30-6.

For the Albert their was good first performances from Ste Campbell and Mark Ryan.

Despite the scoreline their was plenty of promise from this young Albert side particularly their first-half performance and it was only lack of match practice due to the postponement of two friendlies that took its toll on the Albert.

Before the game both sides respected a minutes silence in memory of the Albert committee man, Ken Critchley, who sadly passed away during the summer.

Widnes Albert this week play their first home game at their new ground on Wade Deacon school playing fields.

They are playing host to Ulverston who are making the long trip from Cumbria for the game which kicks-off at 2.30pm.

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