Steve Wood reports on an opening day win.
Tarleton 20 Liverpool St Helens 26
Liverpool St. Helens kicked off the 2022/23 season with a deserved away win away against Tarleton in the Counties ADM North west league.
With the wind at their backs LSH were soon on the attack, and after 11 minutes a well worked scrum move saw Romano free on the right hand side to score the opening try of the season. The touchline kick was converted by Wood to make the score 0-7.
Tarleton then worked into the game exerting pressure on the LSH line but the Moss Laners defence stood resolute, and the teams turned around at half time with just the solitary try and conversion dividing the teams.
Tarleton won a penalty immediately after the restart, converted, 3-7. Their defence then gave a penalty away for offside, upon which LSH promptly marched up the field and from a resulting scrum, the ball was transferred wide to find Romano who forced his way over the line to increase the LSH lead to 3-12, the try going unconverted.
From the kick off Tarleton again put the LSH defensive line under pressure, Once again LSH defended well before going on the attack, and following a lovely break from the evergreen Stanley, Wood spotted a gap in the Tarleton defence, chipped over and followed his own kick, to dive over for the third LSH try. Wood then converted to extend the lead to 3-19.
The LSH backs were now getting into their groove, and following another break from midfield, Northey's men forced a scrum on the Tarleton 22. Wood spotted the ever alert Romano free out wide and found his winger with a well-judged kick. Dickinson popped up in support and returned the ball to Romano for the winger to score his hat trick try, just to the right of the posts. Wood converted to give LSH a 23 point lead. 3-26
This only served to spark a revival from the home side as LSH seemed to take their foot off the gas, allowing Tarleton back in the game, and from an LSH knock on, they scored a short range converted try, 10-26, followed by a successful penalty 13-26.
Tarleton, now with their tails up took full advantage to score another converted try after forcing a goal line drop out, 20-26 which to the relief of the LSH travelling fans, proved to be the final score of the game.
All in all a good performance from LSH taking maximum points from their first encounter of the season.
