Cleckheaton travelled to Wirral with an injury hit squad, with no less than seven regular players being sidelined due to injury or other unavailability, including Andy, Matt and Richard Piper, Ollie Depledge, Tom Austin, Jack Bickerdike and Josh Hall. It did however present the opportunity to field a youthful looking pack with half the starting eight of Jack Seddon, Luke Pearson, Bradley Marsden and Niall Jackson being 21 or under.

Cleckheaton were caught cold from the outset and whilst shaking the hour and a half bus journey out of them, Wirral went in for two tries. Both were converted by their man of the match James Annetts and Cleck faced a 14 point deficit with just 4 minutes played. For the rest of the first half honours were pretty much even, with Cleckheaton exerting a lot of pressure and holding plenty of possession in Wirral territory. However handling errors and ruck turnover plagued their efforts. Jake Jagger went very close on his return to first team action but just couldn't get the ball down as he was being bundled into touch. Against the run of play, Wirral broke Cleckheaton down in centre field and went in for a long range effort.

Trailing 21-0 at half time Cleckheaton did not see the task as beyond them, the headway they made at times during the first half provided them with encouragement that they could work their way back into the fixture. As it turned out this was not to be the case as Wirral went in for another 6 tries, with all but one of them being improved by the boot of Annetts. Wirral play an expansive game and had the cushion to throw the ball about and off load at every opportunity. Cleckheaton conceded some fairly soft tries but the ball did seem to bounce just right for the home team on a number of occasions. Cleck did not simply capitulate though and kept working. Following a scrum 5m from Wirrals line Ryan Piercy dived over for a try and Ronan Evans converted. Wirral hit back but Cleckheaton went on the attack again and stretched their opposition’s defence from one side of the pitch to the other. The ball was quickly moved back in the direction it originally came and Piercy drew the last man before passing to Brad Marsden for Cleckheaton's second try. Wirral had the last say and scored a couple more tries from deep in their own half before the referee brought an end to proceedings.

Not the result Cleckheaton wanted put Wirral are a top 3 side and beating them on their own turf was always going to be a tough ask. Whilst Cleckheaton had a reduced squad the 18 that did play put the effort in and didn't stop grafting. Second team regulars Matt Wood and Craig Blackburn relished their opportunity for some first team action and Mark Chivers walked away with man of the match for the second week in a row. The next two games are crucial for Cleckheaton as they face two teams below them in the table in Stockport (home) and Morley (away) over the next fortnight. Cleckheaton will be looking to bounce back from defeats by two of the league’s top 3 sides and secure their cushion over the bottom 3 places as we enter the Christmas period. Due to pre-match activities both games are 3pm starts.