Sunday 7th October 2012 Littleborough vs. Rossendale

Rossendale faced the kick off and found themselves under intense pressure immediately. The Dale were staunch in defence and threw in tackle after tackle, notably from Nathan Waddington, Rowan Hopkinson and Dan Dunham. Finally Littleborough were rewarded a scrum some 12m out and quick ball allowed their fly half to exploit a rare hole in the Rossendale back line and score their first try, which they duly converted.

Littleborough’s second try in this period came once more from sustained pressure and despite dogged defence, they succeeded in moving the ball speedily away from the contact area to give their backs some space to run in and score, once more the conversion was successful.

Rossendale launched a determined attack but lost possession at the break down. Ben Flanagan a Rossendale U12s player on loan to Littleborough for the morning, took the ball on the half way line and seemed certain to score but was thwarted by a crushing high speed tackle from Nathan Tattersall.

Despite playing up hill in the next period Rossendale fared better and had several strong runs from Tyler Johnson, Nuri Stoner and scrum half Josh Beeken. Tackling was resolute to keep Littleborough at bay.

With the last play of the period Littleborough were awarded a line out, they took clean ball and slick passing from one side of the pitch to the other, opened a gap in the Rossendale defence which they exploited for their third try and once again converted.

Rossendale kept the fighting spirit alive for the final third of the match. The forwards competed well, with Jack Flanagan and Noah Taylor, the powerhouse of the scrums, in at 2nd row and on more than one occasion prop Sam Ashworth stole possession in the maul to give his side try scoring opportunities. On one occasion Ieuan Dwyfor-Jones was able to storm deep into the opposition half, he was brought down but laid back the ball for team mate Jack Whittaker, ever present at the breakdowns in open play, to gallop ahead, but unfortunately he was bundled into touch only inches from the line.

Despite good defence from the Dale U11s, Littleborough seemed better able to make the most of their possession and were rewarded with three more try's converting two of them to raise their final point tally to 40.

Mention should go to Connor Ferguson who in his debut for Rossendale demonstrated good commitment and awareness.

The final score of 40 points to nil does little to show the passion and spirit with which the U11s competed today and the Coaches feel sure that if the side continues to put in the effort the victories will come. They awarded Man of the Match to Dan Dunham for his outstanding display of defensive tackling.

Final score: Littleborough 40 - Rossendale 0