Manchester 17 Worcester 62

WITH all the talk about holidays at Grove Park, it was Manchester's players who checked out of this game before 10 as Worcester enjoyed some fun in the sun on Saturday.

Manchester - without at least six first teamers due to pre-booked vacations - found themselves 17-0 down after nine minutes in this league mismatch and went on to suffer their biggest ever National One defeat in a 62-17 hammering.

Former director of coaching Alex Keay's legacy lived on for at least one more match after his decision to rubber stamp the holiday dates backfired spectacularly for Manchester in this re-arranged fixture.

It was a game always likely to bring defeat for the Cheadle Hulme side but, shorn of some influential players, the gulf in class was rather harshly exposed by Worcester.

Craig Chalmers, given time and space, excelled with his distribution but for such an experienced player it was like shelling peas against a painfully poor team which is now staring at a relegation dogfight.

Chris Garrard - hero of the opening clash of the season between the two sides with four tries - gave Manchester an early reminder of his talents when he started the ball rolling for the visitors. The Australian latched on to a flighted pass from Jim Jenner to begin the rout on six minutes. Two minutes later, Chalmers found Chris Yates and the powerhouse centre beat two men, a little too easily from Manchester's viewpoint, to make it 10-0. Straight from the drop-out, Dave Sims then launched an attack with Neil Lyman, Martin Morgan and Kingsley Jones before Ben Hinshelwood finished off a flowing move to leave Manchester in no mans land so early into the game. Chalmers added the conversion and Worcester were flying. Hinshelwood turned provider soon after when he took advantage of a Garrard burst to set up Yates for his second.

After a brief flurry from Manchester, which led to Danny Collins' 17th minute try, Worcester turned up the heat as Chalmers began to take control. His turn of pace took him past two men before offloading to half-back partner Richard Smith for the fifth try. The former Scotland fly half converted and Worcester led 29-5 at half time.

Mercilessly, the visitors turned the screw within two minutes of the restart as Garrard finished off an exquisite move on the left and Chalmers added the extra points. Manchester enjoyed a period of pressure before John Brain's men extended the lead in the 58th minute when Morgan finished off a powerful drive to add another converted score.

Skipper Jones then bagged his second try of the season against Manchester when he took advantage of initial good work from replacement Winston Stanley to crash over. Chalmers signed off his impressive afternoon's work by kicking the conversion before making way for Tony Yapp.

A brief punctuation in Worcester's dominance came from Matthew Leyden's try with 14 minutes left but their was still time for Alistair Murdoch's touchdown, converted by Yapp, and Duncan Roke's try down the extremely productive left-hand-side.

Leyden boosted his personal points total with the final try of the game, which he then converted, but it was little consolation for Manchester.

Worcester: Roke 7, Murdoch 6, Hinshelwood 7, Yates 7, Garrard 7, Chalmers 8, Smith 7; Windo 7, Hall 7, Lyman 7, Sims 7, Morgan 8, Evans 7, NJONES 9, Jenner 7.

Replacements: Moncrief (Smith 73), Yapp 6 (Chalmers 64), Stanley 7 (Yates 60), Carter 6 (Jenner 50), Soper 6 (Sims 67), Ross, Collins (Lyman 71).

Man of the match: KINGSLEY JONES - kept the side hungry and capped an energetic display with a try.