Richard Piper topped off a week in which he celebrated the birth of his second son with a hat-trick of tries for Cleckheaton and Paul Turner put in a man of the match performance to earn victory over West Hartlepool. The bonus point win extends the Moorenders’ perfect start to the season and now puts them level on points at the top of the table with a game in hand.

Cleckheaton’s forwards started the match in determined fashion taking the play to West Hartlepool and testing their defence. Whilst a couple of individual drives were repelled, as soon as Cleckheaton formed themselves into a driving maul the visitors, like many teams in recent times, were unable to resist and Richard Piper went over to give Cleck a 5 point lead in as many minutes.

To prove the point that Cleckheaton’s catch and drive is difficult for teams to deal with, Richard Piper got his second score when he directed the pack from a line out just inside Wests’ 22m line. Ross Hayden added the extras to make it 12-0.

Wests got their Forward machine into full flight and bombarded Cleckheaton’s defence. The home side scrambled well to keep them out but Chris Piper was adjudged to have deliberately entered a ruck from the side to slow down play and was sent to the sin bin. Down to 14 men Cleckheaton had to work extra hard to contain Wests’ forwards. They did this manfully but when the visitors switched the attack to their backs, an inside pass created space for Pete Youll to slip through Cleckheaton’s over stretched defence. To make matters worse just after the re-start, Cleck were reduced to 13 men for 6 minutes when Alex Dawson tackled Wests’ ball catcher in the air and was also shown a yellow card. Despite the disadvantage in numbers Cleckheaton did not concede any further points and the half ended at 12-5.

Restored to 15 men at the break, Clekheaton attacked Wests with a full compliment as the second forty minutes got underway. Slick handling from Michael and Matthew Piper put James Marshall into space and the centre carried the ball into Wests’ danger zone. Scrambling defence prevented a try but Cleckheaton were rewarded with a line out and the chance to set up yet another rolling maul. The visitors put all the pack into the push but spotting this, Richard Piper peeled off the back 5 or 6 metres out and dragging a defender over with him, completed his hat-trick. Ross Hayden improved the score to 19-5.

Cleckheaton were now retaining possession very well and the old adage of ‘if the other side don't have the ball they can't score’, was very much to the fore. Cleckheaton won a scrum on Wests’ 22 and Richard Piper picked up and went blind, feeding Jack Bickerdike who outpaced the covering defence for Cleckheaton’s bonus point try. Ross Hayden, now kicking with increasing confidence, slotted the conversion from the touchline.

A further penalty from Hayden gave Cleckheaton a 24 point cushion and the game was effectively in the bag. However Wests had not given up the fight and took advantage of Cleckheaton taking a foot off the gas and went in for two consolation tries from Adam Coates and Andrew Turner. It was the Moorenders who would have the last word though when Hayden kicked a second penalty on the stroke of fulltime to give a final score of 32-17.

This was a well deserved win for Cleckheaton against one of the top sides in the league. Fellow high flyers Pocklington lost to Rochdale, leaving Cleckheaton as the only side that remain unbeaten in this year’s campaign. That coveted statistic will be placed firmly on the line this coming weekend when the Moorenders make the short trip along the M62 to face in-form Huddersfield YMCA.