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Manchester Village Spartans extended their winning streak to a record five games with a comfortable win against a competitive Burnage team. The win consolidates the team‘s fifth spot in the Miller Homes League 5 South.
The game started with some good early pressure and possession by the Spartans in Burnage territory, but no points came of it. Instead, Burnage had the first scoring chance with Spartans giving away a needless penalty close to their posts. Fortunately for Spartans, the home side's kicker hit the post and Spartans managed to retain possession and clear the lines.
Spartans then took control of the game mid-way through the first half. After a break down the right hand side of the pitch pulled the Burnage defence in, the Spartan's forwards quickly recycled the ball and the backs effectively exploited the space available for Gareth Longley to score in the left corner.
Soon after Longley doubled his tally, scoring under the posts after Tom Precott and Wayne Miles had broken through the Burnage mid-field defence. Matt Whiteley slotted the simple conversion to put the Spartans 12-0 up at half time, having dominated territory and possession throughout
Spartans started the second half in the same vein, dominating territory and possession and scoring early on, this time through a well-worked Rhys Jones try scored just to the left of the posts after the Burnage defence had been ripped apart by excellent attacking backs play.
Spartans then enjoyed a further period of sustained pressure in the Burnage half, as a result of some intelligent kicking to the corner using the strong wind. Spartans managed to steal Burnage line out ball deep inside Burnage territory and after several phases of the play with the forwards driving play forward towards the line, the ball was spun out to the left and then back to the right for Drew Hastie to come within inches of scoring before an excellent offload out of the tackle allowed Prescott to touch down easily. Whiteley converted to take the score to 24-0.
A lapse in Spartans defensive organisation and concentration then allowed Burnage to come back into the game with two quick tries. The first was scored by their pacey winger, who found too much space out wide, broke the defensive line and cantered in to score between the posts. The second Burnage try came after several phases of strong forwards play, driving up the fringes before a gap opened up in the Spartans mid-field defence for the big Burnage flanker to score between the posts again. Both tries were converted to bring the score to 24-14 to set some Spartan nerves jangling.
Despite the best efforts of the big Burnage pack, Spartans managed to close out the game clinically, with more excellent kicking pinned Burnage back in their own 22m area. Then, with less than 5 minutes remaining, Spartans put the game out of reach after Burnage were forced to concede a penalty near their own posts and Whiteley knocked over his 3rd successful kick of the day. This took the score the 27-14 and so it remained to the final whistle
The Spartans had extended their record league winning streak to 5 games and consolidated their 5th spot in the league table. The team can now look forward with some confidence to the challenge of Heaton Moor, the team immediately above them in the league, on 24 November - a game which could take them to third place.
Off the pitch The Spartans have also had noticeable success securing a sponsorship package with Total Fitness, and shortly to be filmed for Channel M's Talking Sharks programme.
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