Wigan Senior Colts 29-5 Rossendale Senior Colts

Rossendale Senior Colts travelled to Wigan expecting a tough fixture, with the home side having beaten Fleetwood 76 nil away from home the previous week. After the previous weeks victory over Whitchurch where the benefits of a larger squad came into play, a number of players were unavailable for this fixture, so Dale travelled with a depleted squad of 17.

After a slight delay to the kick off, Wigan started the brighter with a spell of pressure, passing the ball down the line which resulted in a try in the corner for the hosts who missed the resultant conversion. From the restart, Dale had their first sustained period of pressure within the Wigan half but following a turn over, one of the Wigan backs raced clear and only a last ditch tackle from Mark Rutherford-Shaw saved a certain try. More Wigan pressure saw a speculative kick into the Dale 22 and whilst it looked like the Rossendale player had touched down first, the try was awarded to Wigan and with the conversion they moved into a 12 point lead.

Against a high and often off-side line, Rossendale were struggling to get the backs into the game, but the forwards were getting through a lot of work and doing well in the scrum. This was proving to be a very physical encounter and a high tackle on Hadley Newell took the Rossendale player out of the game on the 23rd minute and resulted in a yellow card for the home side.

With the man advantage, Rossendale gained the upper hand, winning a scrum against the head. More pressure resulted in a penalty, with Max Lyth, playing at fly half, kicking into the corner, but Wigan won possession back from the resulting line-out and moved quickly into the Rossendale midfield for the first time since the yellow card. Missed tackles led to an overlap on the right with Wigan scoring in the corner in what would be one of the last plays of the half, leaving the score at half time, 17-0 in their favour.

Dale started the second half well a kick and chase for the Full Back Tom Unsworth unluckily ran out of play. The physical nature of the game continued with ill-discipline from Wigan leading to several penalties. Unfortunately Dale couldn’t convert pressure into points and Wigan again broke into the Rossendale half and only a last ditch challenge saved a try with the ball being held up. From the resulting scrum, however, the Wigan number 8 picked the ball up and ran through to score the fourth try, which wasn’t converted. Whilst the score was against them, Dale continued to battle and their heads did not go down. More pressure led to turnover ball in midfield which resulted in another yellow card for Wigan. Again, Dale went through the phases and this time made it count with Oliver Molloy kicking through for Jacob Taylor to touch down a fully deserved try. With the missed Conversation the score was now 22-5.

The hosts continued to concede penalties in their own half, with more indiscipline in the face of Dale pressure, but another missed tackle created another overlap on the left hand side allowing the hosts to score, with the full back taking a difficult conversation to make the score 29-5. Dale continued to battle on and forced an attacking scrum close to the Wigan try line, Mark Rutherford-Shaw picking up the back of the scrum with Dale going through the phases but the ball was held up once again.

Yet more attacking play saw Oliver Molloy try another cross field kick which unluckily ran out of play and the match ended with the score 29-5 which was not a fair reflection of the efforts put in by the lads. It was a good team performance from the weakened squad, with good showings again from Cole Lanigan at Hooker and Sam Irving who time and time again took the fight to the hosts. Special mention to Charlie Bishop for an excellent performance at loose head prop, playing his first game since coming back to the team after a 2 year lay-off through injury. Rossendale's Man of the Match was awarded to Mark Rutherford-Shaw. who literally drew blood for the cause with a tireless display of ball carrying and tackling.

Ian Molloy