The One Where Aaron Wiped Out The All-Stars

As with most weekends, the day started off in lovely weather with a number of the 3's down to assist with the All Stars. Its fair to say that some are now taking this a little too seriously including Chris 'Doggy' Dodd who has now overtaken Lawrence Hiney in the seriousness stakes whilst Aaron Hussain had a morning to forget as he knocked on his first pass, threw his next one forward and then in trying to redeem himself manged to flatten and then fall onto one of the female All Stars. Maybe this was an omen for how the rest of the day was going to pan out???

Onto the game and in typical fashion, the lovely morning Stockport weather was replaced with awful grey and windy weather as the 3's arrived at Glossop to face off against their 2's in the semi final of the Cotton Traders Shield. Hopes were high with Stockport looking to maintain their undefeated streak against a team they had already beaten twice in the league however a raft of unavailability's led to call ups for the 3 Rushton boys as well as the return of Levy Nzoungou in the midfield.

With a partisan crowd in attendance, Stockport won the toss and elected to play into the wind for the first half and were soon on the scoreboard with a penalty goal from fly half Rick Morgan. The next act saw Glossop onto the attack and a cross field kick was falling into the arms of the home side full back until he was taken out in the air by wing Duncan Hedar who received a yellow card for his troubles. With a man down, the home side targeted the now empty space previously occupied by Hedar and this time the cross field kick was gathered which saw Glossop register their first try which was converted giving them a slender 7-3 lead. The cross field kick was soon replicated and the lead increased which resulted in another try from the same Glossop player however this went unconverted but Glossop were now making in roads into the Stockport defence, which was in complete disarray and soon led to a 3rd try for the home team as they sauntered through the middle of the Stockport line to register another converted score and Stockport were now staring down the barrel of a 19-3 deficit before half time. With a malfunctioning lineout and handling errors across the park, Stockport seemed shell shocked but managed to claw their way back with some stoic defending which resulted in another penalty that Morgan stepped up to strike through the uprights which took the teams into half time with Glossop leading 19-6.

Nothing needed to be said at half time as we all knew where the issues were and there was a better second half attitude and performance which limited the home side to a mere 6 points from 2 penalties (which was comical considering they barracked us every time we kicked for goal). With the line out no longer an option, Morgan went for a 3rd penalty goal from well inside his own half however the Glossop Mole reappeared and this opportunity went begging but giving credit where its due, the visitors refused to give up and with the last play of the game a blind side break from MOTM and workhorse No.8 Elliot Galloway was fed back inside to scrum half Keith Warhurst who linked up with flanker Tom Mounkley to register a score which was duly converted by Morgan leaving the final score at 25-13 to Glossop, seeing them set up a final on 4th May against Wirral 3's who narrowly beat Eccles by 16-13.

On a day where MOTM performances were in short supply, one man definitely stood up to be counted. Surely in the reckoning for player of the season, he seems incapable of having a bad game and manfully stuck to his tasks yesterday with big hits in defence and constantly offering himself up as the carrying option. This week's MOTM went to No.8 Elliot Galloway.

DOTD could have gone to a number of people however in being consistent, yellow cards always lead the way so after his WWE-esque off the top rope clotheslines, DOTD went to wing Duncan Hedar.