Oli’s on song as in-form Park pile

ROSSLYN Park continued their fine run of form with a dominant five-try victory over Fylde at The Rock.

First-half dot downs from Benji Marfo, Arthur Ellis and Nick Lovell were followed up by tries from Oli Grove and replacement Owen Hughes as Park made it four wins from their last five matches.

Greg Nicholls and Tom Carleton did go over for the visitors, who remain bottom of the table with just 17 points to their name.

The home side put Fylde under pressure right from the get-go and were rewarded after just nine minutes when Grove charged down a clearance to force the turnover before Harry Leonard fed Marfo who turned on the afterburners to cross the whitewash in the corner.

Fylde have just three league wins to their name and their inability to stem the Rosslyn Park tide meant their wait for a fourth triumph would go on as Ellis sniped home under the posts to help make it 12-0.

The visitors showed signs of life on 27 minutes when Nicholls capitalised on a sloppy error from Park at the lineout as he dotted down to help bring Fylde to within a score.

But moments before half-time Rosslyn struck the crucial blow as a driving maul caused Fylde all sorts of problems and tighthead prop Lovell was able to rumble over to extend Rosslyn’s advantage to ten points heading into the interval.

Despite an early secondhalf penalty from Greg Smith, Fylde could not hold back the in-form Grove who showed excellent feet to weave his way through a series of tackles to crash over.

Fylde emerged triumphant the last time these teams met in the league but there was to be no repeat of that as the driving maul caused yet more problems for the visiting side.

A tired defence had no answer for the Rosslyn Park attack as the ball fell to replacement Hughes who was able to burst through unchallenged and slide under the posts.

A yellow card for Park’s Stuart Maguire gave Fylde a chance to restore a modicum of pride with 15 minutes to go.

And they made no mistake as Carleton showed a clean pair of heels to race away from the Rosslyn defence to score Fylde’s second try of the afternoon.

Good play from Grove again almost presented Rosslyn with their sixth try but Fylde were able to turn the ball over just metres from the try-line to keep the their hosts at bay.