Rossy revel as muddy marvels
●● Dominic Moon opened the scoring for Rossendale in the weekend’s victory against Morley at Marl Pits NORTHERN DIVISION NORTHERN PREMIER ROSSENDALE................. 26 MORLEY ............................ 7 SHELDAN KEAY
ROSSENDALE RUFC picked up a comfortable victory at home on Saturday after defeating Morley RUFC at Marl Pits.
If any side can adapt to the conditions it’s Rossendale as they recorded their eleventh win of the season and now have Billingham in their sights, as they still have to play the North East club twice in back to back encounters due to postponements earlier in the season.
The muddy conditions were not conducive to open rugby but Rossendale understood the situation and took the first points with a try from Dominic Moon.
The back rower capitalised on their strength as they went over from a catch and drive after the home side elected to go for touch from a penalty, with Lewis Allen adding the conversion.
Jack Wilkinson brought up the second, once again from a catch and drive which was also converted by Allen but Morley, who despite their relegation threatened position were giving a good account of themselves, created enough pressure to open up the home defence for a converted try.
Just before the interval, more forward dominance from the hosts led to good work from Ryan McKibbin and Jack Ward, who then got Phil Mills over for the third, with Allen’s conversion sending the home side in 21-7 ahead at the interval.
With conditions underfoot deteriorating further, there were few opportuni- ties in the second period but from a peel off from the back of a line out by Reece Tomlinson, Curtis Strong was on hand to provide the link and Ward went in for the fourth and the bonus point.
That’s how the match finished, with Rossendale in control throughout the game and going on to pick up the 26-7 victory.
The win has left Rossendale sixth in the Northern Premier table, six points behind fifth placed Billingham with a game in hand. Morley are in 12th after the defeat.
Rossendale will now try to build on their victory when they make the trip to Birkenhead Park.
The Merseyside club are second from bottom in the table having lost 16 of their 20 games so far this season, although they did defeat Wirral 24-18 on Saturday.
Rossendale will be hoping for a similar performance to when they went up against Birkenhead Park earlier in the season, when they picked up a 37-10 win at home back in September, with Lewis Allen performing well for the hosts in the match. ●● WINNERS of the first leg of the March to Victory competition at Great Harwood Golf Club were S Stevenson, S Jukes and G Dodd (122 pts). In second were D Wooton, D Taylor and M Salmon with 120 points acop