Fleetwood Senior Colts 5-40 Rossendale Senior Colts

Rossendale travelled to Fleetwood with a full complement of 22 players on Sunday, and were able to lend Fleetwood a couple of players to make sure the game could go ahead with full numbers - thanks to Idrees Nazir, Matthew Derbyshire, Will Peel, Mark Rutherford-Shaw, Alex Kilshaw and Max Lyth for all willingly taking turns to play for the home side. It created a good, keenly contested game where Rossendale played the more structured rugby and exerted influence across the park to win the game eight tries to one.

The first half saw early forays from both sides, with Dale starting a little slowly until Callum Whelan received a ball after a couple of passes away from a scrum to dart over to score. Dale's next score came from a lineout, with a strong catch and drive finished off by Isaac Cornwall. It was another lineout that saw a good drive down the field before releasing the ball through the hands for Oliver Molloy to sprint over and score. It was another backs move soon afterwards that saw the ball move out to the wing for Alex Kilshaw to dash over to score. The forwards now took their turn to make the impact, and keep Fleetwood under the cosh with an impressive forty metre driving maul pushing the home side back into their twenty-two , before shipping the ball out to Oliver Molloy to score his second. On the stroke of half time, Job Bedlow made a break and scored a try to end the half, Fleetwood 0-30 Rossendale.

Fleetwood definitely started the second half the stronger and looked to be through a couple of minutes into the half, when Callum Whelan made an excellent try saving tackle to snuff out the attack. With their tails up, Fleetwood kept up the pressure and were eventually rewarded with a try, scored by one of the loaned Rossendale lads, Mark Rutherford-Shaw. Dale seemed to reel from this, and started to build up the momentum, but made some poor decisions to neutralise promising attacking positions. Eventually, Idrees Nazir started a phase of play with a strong run into midfield, before finishing the phase with a try. Dale's final try came after some good technical rugby, with the forwards building upon three good phases, sucking in the defence, then releasing the ball to the back line and get Will Walmsley over to score. The final score was Fleetwood 5-40 Rossendale. Rossendale's Man of the Match went to Charlie Bishop for excellent scrummaging and good all-round play.

Thanks to Jake (the stand-in referee) and to Jon, Lisa and the lads at Fleetwood for their hospitality and we wish them the best of luck for the rest of the season.