New Brighton Senior Colts 0-29 Rossendale Senior Colts

Rossendale travelled to the Wirral to play New Brighton in a game that marked the start of the conference phase of the Colts leagues, just as the winter winds arrived for the first time this season. The home side had bolstered their team from Dale's previous visit and a hard fought, but fair encounter kicked off with Dale's tails up after the previous week's excellent win.

Dale immediately applied the pressure and started what was to be the first of many forays into the home team's half. A penalty move on the edge of the twenty-two nearly saw Rossendale on the scoreboard with less than five minutes gone, but a knock-on just short of the line put an end to that. Throughout the game, Rossendale worked to gain the upper hand as New Brighton defended fiercely and on several occasions after doing the hard graft to create an attack, handling errors resulted in possession being turned over. It was from an opposition scrum for one of these handling errors on the five metre line that Rossendale stole the ball against the head and moved the ball quickly out to Jordan Fortune who made a clever kick through to give Henry Higgins the chance to score. Dale's second try came after a couple of strong forwards phases presented the ball to Henry Wilby to make a darting run before feeding the ball to Jordan Fortune, who made a strong run from the half way line, evading a couple of defenders on the way to score under the posts with Henry Wilby scoring the conversion. Dale's third try came after the ball moved across the park quickly from a lineout and gave Wes Barrett the opportunity to stretch his legs and sprint in to score. New Brighton would not give up though, and continued to take the fight to Rossendale, and gained some momentum when Dale's discipline slipped as they conceded three consecutive penalties but were saved by the referees whistle for half time, with the score New Brighton 0-17 Rossendale.

The second half continued with Dale applying the pressure and fortunately making fewer mistakes, but New Brighton continued to fight hard and make it difficult. Dale relieved the pressure when Jordan Fortune put another grubber kick through to allow Wes Barrett to pounce and grab a second try, with Jordan Fortune bagging the extras. It was Wes Barrett on the scoreboard again a few minutes later after catching a clearance kick in his own half, then sprinting round the New Brighton defence fending off three tackles before scoring. Possibly the best try of the game came from a 'Gary Owen' launched high into the air by Jordan Fortune and gathered in by Callum Pelling as he galloped over to score. It was another kick that gave Rossendale their final try when Henry Wilby hoofed a clearance kick down field and Wes Barrett chased it down, jinked around two defenders and went in to score to close the game New Brighton 0-29 Rossendale.

Man of the match was a close affair, with several players having a good shout for the honour, but it was awarded to Henry Wilby for all round distribution and control on the back last week's excellent performance.