Pendle 0 - 30 Rossendale

This time Pendle had a full strength squad and Rossendale an amazing 24-man squad. This gave the coaches a rotational nightmare. The policy with the under 14’s is that if you train then you play and all present got at least twenty minutes on the pitch.

Rossendale got off to a slightly stuttering and disjointed start. But all the play was in the Pendle half. After fifteen minutes Zak Byrne put down in the left hard corner in his usual robust manner. There followed some good periods of play and a further two great tries followed both of which were the result of good teamwork. A Zak Byrne, Luke Monks combination run resulted in Luke touching down for the first; the second a great effort by Jonathan Taylor. This had Rossendale 15 points up at half time.

Into the second half, again Rossendale got off to a shaky start but soon found their stride with George Peel scoring a great try, which was close because, due to the poor conditions, he nearly ran into the dead ball area before touching down! Tom Allen, after some robust defence by Pendle, popped a try in between the posts. George Peel popped up again to bring more misery to Pendle Unfortunately, of the six tries, there were no conversions; in fairness four of these were from extreme positions. Rossendale gave away some silly penalties and had two penalties reversed against them with players lucky not to be sent off.

Pendle played better than the final score indicates and could have scored on several occasions. They had some very big lads in their pack that they used them to great effect. It is to Rossendale’s credit and continued improvement that these big lads charging toward them do not deter them and now tackle well and defend very effectively. Jasper Howard put some great tackles in. Elliot Lewis and David Mitchell worked well together to create some good ball play. Rossendale are improving game by game and are a real pleasure to watch.

Man of the match was given to George Peel, for outstanding ball skills and working with the backs to produce some fantastic runs and tries.