The Blues faced second placed Coventry at the Butts Park Arena on Saturday, and were looking to build on their last away performance which saw them victorious at Tynedale.
The Blues were faced with the tough task of ending Coventry’s unbeaten run of 17 games which has seen them challenging Ealing at the top of the league.
The Blues’ start to the game was not ideal as they failed to take possession from kick off and Coventry quickly created space for the lightning quick Dan Rundle to pick up his first of three tries with just over a minute on the clock.
On seven minutes, the hosts doubled their lead, a set move from the line out put their captain Cliffie Hodgson into acres of space as he breezed past Macclesfield defenders to walk in under the posts, 14-0.
The Blues then finally woke up and showed that they could be a threat to the second best team in this league. Sam James went agonisingly close on 15 minutes as he hacked the ball in behind and looked certain to score but for some heroic recovery defence.
On 21 minutes, Dan Rundle got his second, showing quick feet to step around a tackle and finish, the score was converted, 21-0.
Macclesfield registered their first score on the half hour mark, the driving maul at the line out proving effective as Max Smith marshalled it from the back and touched down, 21-5.
Macc went close again five minutes later but were judged by the referee to be held up over the line, an unfortunate but fair call which meant the blues still trailed 21-5 at half time.
It took ten minutes for the first real action of the second half, and it was for Dan Rundle to complete his hat-trick with a piece of individual brilliance. The young winger picked up the ball no further than ten metres from his own line and showed superhuman speed to out run the entire Blues defence to score at the other end, 28-5.
Five minutes after Rundle’s score, Macclesfield flanker Phil Williams saw yellow for an infringement at the break down, Williams unfortunate to be the man to go, but the decision piled more pressure onto Macc.
The Blues managed the ten minutes with 14 without conceding a point but when back to 15 coventry got a five metre scrum had a shove on, the Macc pack infringed a halt the drive and the referee went under the posts to award a penalty try, 35-5.
The final ten minutes were dominated by Macclesfield and the visitors got their reward on 74 minutes when Shane Heffernan burst over the line to get another score back for The Blues.
Captain Mike Finnemore then got himself on the scoresheet also with a minute to play to give The Blues slight hope of a bonus point, however the other score needed didn’t come and The Blues went down 35-15 at the Butts Park Arena.
