Seconds sign off with stylish show
IT was the final game of the Cotton Traders Premier League for the second team of Rossendale RUFC at Marl Pits on Saturday and what a way to finish the season off.
It’s been a long difficult year with many breaks in play due to the scheduling of the league, postponed games and difficulties with playing rosters.
An admission that at times it felt that it would be simpler to throw the towel in and walk away from this year in readiness for a whole fresh start for the following season – but that would be too easy and after Saturday’s performance the benefits of not having done so for those players and coaches that have committed so much through the course of the year were reaped with great aplomb.
To be fair, Rossendale have not been the only team to have suffered this year.
The instances within the premier league where teams have been understrength or having to cancel games is almost unprecedented.
Lymm, the visitors, were no exception to this and despite both sides having a full complement of players in the days leading up to the game, the fixture – particularly being on a Bank Holiday weekend – ensured the dreaded curse of the withdrawl notices begin to hit both sides as the day of the game approached.
As the game got underway it was clear that both sides were very evenly matched to start with.
There was a turnaround for Dale though this week in that whereas they have had a very big, dominant pack for most of the season that has rarely been pushed back, they were rather more on the back foot particularly at the scrummages and were not getting their own way.
However, the back line aptly compensated for this with their speed and agility as well as some excellent defending seen throughout the game.
It was some 20 minutes in to the match before the first score. Rossendale took the lead when swift hands through the backs saw James Willets with ball in hand commit the
last defender into the tackle before sending an ever so sweet pass to Hayden Wells on the wing which he duly took towards the posts to make the conversion for AJ Potgeiter easier.
Shortly afterwards, Rossendale found themselves on the attack in Lymm’s 22 again from where Dale’s young scrum half AJ Potgeiter made an audacious break from the back of the ruck and found a clear gap to duly score under the posts, adding the conversion to his own score.
Rossendale held firm until half time and did not allow Lymm to put anything together that would put undue pressure on their defence.
The only down side of the last moments of the half was the serious knee injury suffered by the second rower Phil Watt who was having a strong game at the time and the team and clubs best wishes go out to him for a full recovery.
From the restart, Lymm started to have a little bit more bite about them and were not going to give in
easy. Some decent attack saw them gain ground into Rossendale’s half on a number of occasions but it was Dale with a wonderful kick return from the flanker Johnny Potgeiter who found the space to elude a number of defenders before offloading to the supporting Hayden Wells to make further progression.
Wells was brought down as he gained valuable metres into Lymm’s 22 but managed to put a magnificent back flick of ball as he was going to ground into the hands of George Peel who gleefully accepted a free run to the line for a further score.
Lymm, still not to be undone, responded with a try of their own – a bit of a disappointment for Dale as they had been completely dominant for a good period of the second half but just started to take their finger off the pulse and some loose passing and bad decision making started to creep in, allowing Lymm to think of a comeback.
Rossendale withstood
further pressure from Lymm with some good team defence but an absolute individual gem of a tackle from Curtis Strong saved a certain try.
With the Lymm attacker diving to go over in the corner, Strong came from the side and enveloped the Lymm player in a vice like grip lifting the ball up to his chest keeping it from the floor then momentum rolled the player over twice before both ended up in touch.
If this had been televised we would probably have had two minutes of TMO reviews and after confirming no try would still be watching the replays now showing how good that tackle actually was.
This seemed to inspire Dale who started to compose themselves and went on the attack again.
Rowan Tweedale, an ex Rossendale junior, grew into the game and started to put some probing runs in that led to Rossendale being once again deep in the Lymm’s half.
Henry Wilby, a late starter in the match due to work commitments out of the area, took the advantage of some great pressure and notched up a further score for Dale with AJ Potgieter adding the conversion.
By this time Lymm had virtually run out of steam and despite Dale being a man down in the sin bin started to press home their superiority.
Hayden Wells scored his second of the game after receiving a fantastic long range pass cutting out several Lymm defenders and capped a great performance from him on the day in fact probably the best we’ve seen of him in Rossendale colours.
Kane Bevan was the last on the score sheet and to round of a very good and enjoyable performance from Dale on the day.
Kane made a break from just inside Dale’s half with a neat shimmy of the shoulders that foxed the oncoming defenders and then applied a magnificent turn of speed to outpace the chasing Lymm players and score in the nearside corner to make the final score on the day Rossendale 38 Lymm 5.
Some great effort from all the team on the day but some noteworthy performances worthy of mention include Luke Morley.
In the twilight of his playing career but providing a strong experienced arm to the Dale side as well as precision throw at the line outs.
George Peel put in a real captains’ knock and Charlie Osbourne quietly gets through plenty of work in games that without being spectacular is missed when he’s not available.
A very pleasing afternoon on the whole and one that those connected with the team can take the memory of into the close season as a massive positive for all.
There are some very good young lads at the club who all have great futures ahead of them and have shown as the season progressed and they have developed good playing relationships together that the future for the team and club is very much bright. Here’s to next season.