Fleet sink table toppers!

Buoyed by a raucous band of travelling support the Green and Golds were confident of causing an upset. Wigan adapted well to the slippery conditions, both sides putting in some crunching tackles. That said it was the home side who opened up their account first, a try scored after 5 minutes, 5-0 down. Returning scrum half Gornall had an opportunity to score but the ball from his hand. Further forward pressure from Wigan allowed their bulky No. 8 to crash over, conversion missed Fleet 10-down. However, Gornall soon made amends for his missed opportunity picking up from the base of the scrum and darting through to score, Jackson adding the extras 10-7 down. Although Fleet were by now finding their feet Wigan were proving hard to breakdown despite some promising carries from full back Jones and winger Parker. Wilson entered the mud bath at scrum half at the expense of Gornall who had injured his arm. The home side increased the score with another forward dominated try making it 15-7 at half time.

On came Newton and the other Jones (Chris). 'don’t panic' was the watch word from manager Jefferson, coupled with encouragement from skipper Barnes. Almost straight away Fleet were on the offensive with full back Jones almost scoring a well worked try- he dropped the ball when touching down! The tone was now set for a Fleet comeback as the back row trio of Jones, Atkin and the prominent No.8 Richardson began to dominate the breakdown. Not surprisingly it was Richardson who scored the next try and Jackson converting to make it 15-14. Although Wigan continued to press whenever they had the ball the visitors had grown in confidence and from a scrum inside the home half rewarded another try again Richardson was the beneficiary, Fleet now 19-15 ahead. With Atkin showing his dead eye accuracy with his throwing in the line-out, set piece ball was being secured and the Melbourne avenue players were now dominating the game. To round things off it was flying winger Stapleton who smashed over to score following wave after wave of hard attacking rugby, conversion missed but by now it was immaterial, Fleet victorious 24-15.

Overall, a great team performance in particular the second half display from backs and forwards alike. However, the player who stood out for his tackling, all round contribution and scoring was man of the match Richardson. The November road trip comes to an end as Tyldesley are the seaside visitors next week.

Report by Dan Jefferson