Rossendale sunk by Ormskirk

Ormskirk rugby Union under 14’s visited the Marl Pits ground in Rossendale this Sunday morning for a Blacksticks Cup Match. The visitors won the toss and chose sides allowing Rossendale Captain, Rowan Hopkinson the opportunity to take the kick off.

The game got underway just as the forecasted rain began to fall. Ormskirk collected from a deep kick off and Rossendale were up in a line to contest possession. Dan Dunham and Haig Howarth tore the ball out of their opponents grip and Tom Moore was on hand to continue the move drawing in the defence before offloading to Tyler Johnson whose straight running gained a further few metres, with the touchline in sight Nuri Stoner lent his power to the move and carried the ball almost to the tryline before being brought down but he still had the strength to stretch out and ground the ball to put the first points on the board in under three minutes. Rowan Hopkinson converted from a difficult angle to claim a further 2 points.

Ormskirk received the kick off again and this time were allowed more space to run at the ‘Dale defence. They had some big powerful runners and sucked in the Rossendale defence before feeding the ball out to their left wing, if not for a last ditch tackle from Ellis Williams forcing the winger into touch, the visitors would surely have scored. The pressure was still on as the visitors took possession from the lineout only 5 metres out, fierce tackling kept them at bay and they were forced to move the ball out to their right but by now the home sides defence was stretched thin and Ormskirk finally broke through to put five points on the board. The conversion was missed.

Ormskirk mounted another strong attack from the kick off and once again their powerful runners were able to break through the ‘Dale defence and as the rain persisted conditions underfoot made it difficult for the defenders to regroup allowing the Merseysiders to score again, this time under the posts leaving a straightforward conversion kick to claim the full 7 points.

Once again as in all their matches this season, the Home sides scrum worked well and Tom Moore at No: 8 frequently took the ball from the back of the set piece to launch several effective attacks, similarly Nathan Waddington at scrum half proved a handful and on one occasion, having picked up the ball on the blind side almost fooled the Ormskirk defence only to be brought down by the full back some ten metres short of the line.

Both Noah Taylor and Ieuan Dwyfor-Jones did find some space and made ground almost breaking through but eventually both were halted by a stubborn Ormskirk defence.

Nevertheless it was the visitors who were able to make the best of their possession and score four more converted tries , (reaching a 30 point advantage)before Rossendale finally responded with a quickly taken tap penalty by Bradley Watts. Unfortunately Tyler Johnson narrowly missed the conversion attempt having taking over kicking duties from the injured Rowan Hopkinson. At half time the home side were down 12 points to 40.

Playing conditions deteriorated as the second half ensued and the pitch began to resemble a mud bath with both sides finding it a challenge to gain effective possession, as Ormskirk scored shortly after the restart and Tom Moore had to leave the field the match was conceded to the visitors.