Sandal suffer heavy defeat against top four Blackburn

Austen Thompson, who crossed for two tries in Sandal’s defeat at Blackburn. Picture: Simon Hall

The Milnthorpe Green men were subjected to a 12-try romp by a well-coached, lively and purposeful side as they suffered a punishing 76-14 defeat.

Sandal were on the back foot almost from the kick-off when Blackburn scored their first try after three minutes, albeit after a questionable knock-on in the build-up. The extras were added and the visitors were all too quickly trailing 7-0.

Three minutes later the hosts touched down again with the conversion finding its target once more.

Blackburn were in the ascendancy such that in the 12th minute their winger easily ran in a third converted try under the posts to make it 21-0.

Sandal rallied and put their first points on the board in the 20th minute as Michael Knowles made a telling break resulting in a Sandal penalty and from the line-out that followed the forwards were rewarded for their hard work when Austen Thompson was the scorer of a pushover try. Luke Punton converted to cut Blackburn’s lead.

Sandal continued to attack and from another line-out close to the line Thompson was pushed over the whitewash for his second try.

With Punton converting it was now 21-14 and game on. However, that was Sandal’s last score and Blackburn were back in charge with three more tries making it 40-14 at half-time.

From the second half kick-off Blackburn gathered and mounted an attack from which their seventh try was posted.

Sandal stemmed the tide for a while, but the hosts were over again following a good passing move in the back division.

This was followed two minutes later by a ninth Blackburn try which was enabled by some poor Sandal defensive play.

As full-time approached the home side really turned the screw and scored three further tries in six minutes, leaving Sandal with a miserable 76-14 defeat and time to reflect on a poor and low key performance, albeit against a good attacking side.

With such a defeat the Sandal coaches certainly have much to work on if the side is to return to winning ways soon. They host Lymm this Saturday (kick-off 2.15pm).