North West League - Division 4 South

Oswestry 19, Congleton RFC 22

Oswestry welcomed Congleton to Granville Park for a rearranged clash from December.

The visitors, who were just ahead of Oswestry in the league at the start of the day, quickly put pressure on Oswestry which forced a knock on and earned Congleton an early scrum. From that point they ran at Oswestry and at the break down after only a couple minutes Deian Lloyd Hughes had to leave the field with a leg injury with Dan Smart replacing him.

Oswestry fought hard and managed to gain territory into the Congleton half, but after 10 minutes of hard tackles the visitors managed to break out of their half and push towards the Oswestry line forcing the home side to concede a penalty. From the subsequent line Congleton scored a try, but the kick was missed.

From the restart Congleton came back at Oswestry filled with confidence and after five minutes their Number 8 ran the entire Oswestry half to score their second try under the posts, which was converted.

After 21 minutes Olly Wilford left the pitch to be treated, replaced by James Ellis.

To the credit of Oswestry team they pushed forward where James Roberts started a move passing to Connor Blair then Tom Roberts and eventually Gareth Hughes who could not be stopped and scored a try in the corner. The kick was missed.

As the half was drawing to a close Tom Roberts suffered a big hit and had to leave the pitch to be replaced by Jamie Curtis.

Oswestry were pressing Congleton in and were awarded a penalty. Danny Williams had a line out ball just short of the visitors' try line. Tudor Jones drove the ball on passing to Nick Clay who gave the ball to Marco Bercich who ran in to score his first try at the club. Williams stepped up and converted the kick to end the half evenly.

Three minutes into the half Oswestry were in the Congleton 22 and a strong run by Gareth Hughes saw the ball passed to Mike Davies who pushed over the try line and scored. Williams took the conversion.

Ten minutes later Congleton drove over a try under the Oswestry posts with the try converted.

There were no more tries for the rest of the second half, but it remained a close affair as Oswestry tried to brake the visiting team's defence, but as the match was drawing to a close Congleton were awarded a penalty which they took to close the game 22-19.

Man of the match was awarded to Olly Wilford.

Oswestry remain 10th in the league with a losing point moving to 41 points.

On Saturday, they face a difficult challenge when they travel to Wigan to play Aspull who are currently fourth in the league.