Burnley 1st 29 Thornton Clevs 1st 14

Burnley only finalised their team at 1pm and had just two substitutes but they started the brighter and were camped on the Thornton line but could not score.

The away side got into it and Burnley lost a man to the sin bin and then another so were playing 15 against 13 but in this time the home team only conceded one try and conversion. Once back up to 14 Burnley managed to get on the score board through a quick tap penalty and Ben Healy powered over conversion by Sam Mounsey. Back up to their full compliment of 15, Burnley were really hurting Thornton who were not getting any clean ball. However when they did their centre powered through which Burnley need to address and make better tackles but at this point Thornton had another try. Then Burnley made some great runs by captain Luca Angelone and Healy saw Richard Murray pick up and cross for a score converted by Mounsey.

Then just before half time Thornton lost a man to the bin and Mounsey slotted over a penalty. Into the second half and the pack were now walking Thornton all over in the scrum and inter playing well with pick and drives and good runs by Michael Bell and then Simon Finnan darted in for a try, and Burnley were now on top. From another powerful scrum Murray went in for is second of the match. So into the last 20 minutes and unfortunately Thornton lost two front rows to injury, with a prop off and the hooker only being able to play flanker uncontested scrums occurred which helped the away team slightly as now there backs got some ball.

But Burnley stood firm out wide to with Tom Ives defending well even with a damaged leg after falling of is bicycle on Thursday.

So a real positive win built on the power up front but with a young back line averaging around 20 years of age.

Player coach Finnan said: “Things are now starting to come together nicely.”