The Preston Festival was held as a waterfall event, with all teams qualifying for the Cup, Plate or Vase through an initial group, Warrington were drawn with Burnley, Fylde and Rossendale.

First up were Burnley, not a regular on our fixture list so not much was known about them, but Wire ran out convincing 6-0 winners. Next up were Fylde who we last played at Vale, and it resulted in another convincing win, this time 4-0.

The deciding match was against Rossendale, who had also beaten the other 2 teams by a combined score of 6-0, so we thought that a draw was all we needed to progress.

The match was a tense affair, Wire had most of the possession but squandered it frequently through poor handling, with players snatching at passes. Rossendale scored a breakaway try through their impressive winger, a player who had been identified as the danger before the game started. Wire continued to press the Rossendale line and the equaliser came through a spectacular diving try in the corner by Ben.

The match ended 1-1 and we thought we were through, until we saw Rossendale celebrating; on checking with the Preston officials we found out that Rossendale won the group by virtue of scoring first in our head to head match - what is wrong with taking other results into account I have no idea.

The disappointment that the boys felt on hearing the news had a noticeable effect on morale, and the Wire lads didn't have the usual spark when they took o the field in the Plate matches.

First up in the Plate were West of Scotland, a useful team from Glasgow, and they edged a tight affair 3-2. After a break to catch their breath the boys faced back to back matches against Sedgley Park and an in-form Vale of Lune. Wire ran out comfortable 5-3 winners over Sedgley, but ran out of steam against Vale, going down 2-0.

This left us a disappointing 3rd in the Plate group, ruefully looking at what might have ben if we'd gone through to the Cup, where Manchester ran out winners with Rossendale finishing as runners up.