WESTHOUGHTON Lions U10s continued their fine form this season with a 30-12 victory against Limehurst.

The visitors built some early pressure before Jacob Lovett crossed for his first of the game with Cooper Bainbridge slotting over the extras, it was a promising start that would set the tone for the early exchanges.

They extended their lead as a strong run by Lovett helped him cut through the defence and touch down.

Limehurst started to show real signs of working their way into the game at the midway point in the half.

However, intelligent play by Zak Taylor caught out the Limehurst defence with a slick show and go before racing away to score the Lions third try of the game.

Lovett punished a mistake by the visitors to grab his third try of the game as the half time whistle blew to make it 18-0 at the break.

At the start of the second half, Limehurst started to turn up the heat and put the U10s under pressure but the Lions held out for 18 tackles on their own line.

The problem with doing that much work in defense is it takes fuel out of the tank for when you need to work with the ball and the Lions attack was contained for the next couple of sets.

Still eventually the Lions would clear their half of the pitch and be the next to score with Sam Dixon making a smart run across the line to score out wide for the Lions fifth score of the game, with Ali Malik knocking over the extras for the Lions.

The Lions may have scored the try but Limehurst were proving to be dogged opponents and they continued to control the ball better than the Lions.

Limehurst got the rewards for their efforts when a kick was dealt with by the visitors and they scored a try.

Field position was not something the Lions had much of in the second half, but when they did find themselves at the right end of the pitch they tended to turn it into points with Lovett hitting a great line to score his fourth try of the game in the corner. Jack Lee kicked the extras from out wide and the Lions tails were up once more.

The game continued at a steady pace for the last five minutes with both teams launching probing attacks that forced defenders to think quick and react quicker to what was being thrown at them.

Limehurst had the final say in the game as some tired Lions defenders missed tackles in the middle of the field and just didn't have enough left in the tank to chase back and stop the try from being scored.

Elsewhere, a huge effort from the u16s went unrewarded as Shevington stepped up a gear to advance to the semi-finals with a 40-12 victory.

The Lions proved they were a match for their visitors in a tense and entertaining first half.

It was the home side that took a surprise lead when winger Owen Butler won the race to put his hands on the ball following an intelligent kick through to the corner from Dec Ali.

Taylor Hyland landed a fine touchline conversion to put the Lions 6-0 up.

Shevington took full advantage of a number of handling errors by Westhoughton to take an 18-6 lead close to the interval.

The Lions picked themselves up to cut the deficit to six points when Taylor Hyland scooted under the posts from dummy half before converting his own try.

Down only 18-12 the second half started optimistically for Westhoughton but the Sharks turned on the gas to put four unanswered tries past the hosts.