Liverpool St Helens U14s 54 – 24 Rossendale U14s

After an early start to get to St Helens, Rossendale appeared to be up for the game, and early indications were very good indeed. Liverpool St Helens kicked off, straight into the hands of Rhys Tighe, who smashed his way through three defenders before he was slowed down. A quick offload to the supporting Isaac Cornwall maintained the momentum down the pitch, who passed to Mark Rutherford-Shaw to run the remainder of the way. The scrambled defence managed to halt the charge briefly, but Tom Unsworth picked up the ball from the base of the ruck and darted for the line. The pack quickly got around him and drove over the line, only for the referee to deem the ball held up. It was only a temporary set-back though, as quick ball from the resulting 5m scrum saw James Willetts break through to score. LHS started to make some in-roads into Dale territory, but a huge hit on the ruck saw Rhys Tighe steal a ball just inside Dale’s half, pop the ball up to James Willetts, who ran half way down the pitch to score, and convert the try. Four minutes later, it was James Willetts’ turn to steal the ball, quickly spinning the ball out to Tom Haigh who sprinted 40 metres, and wrong-footed the LSH full-back with a silky change of direction to score, again converted by James Willetts. With twelve minutes on the clock, and Rossendale 19 points up, it looked that the result was only going one way.

Within two minutes, LSH had pounced on a Rossendale error, and ran through to score under the posts, and this appeared to be a turning point in the game. Whether the Dale lads had become complacent, or LSH had been unusually sluggish to start, LSH started to apply the pressure, doing the basics well, and getting the ball out wide to go round the Dale defence, to score two more tries before half-time, to end the half LSH 19-19 Dale.

The second half turned even worse; the Dale restart went straight into the hands of the quick, strong LSH flanker who charged through the Dale defence, followed by a couple of quick passes down the line, before running in to score the first of five more LSH tries. Mark Rutherford-Shaw tried to fire up the Rossie lads, with a pick up from the base of a ruck, and used his speed and strength to work round the LSH defenders to score his try, but with two more LSH tries before the end, Dale came off second best, with the final score LSH 54-24 Rossendale.

The man of the match award went to Rossendale full-back Ciaran Campbell, whose ferocious defensive tackling prevented an even higher score line.