Tough, but great, afternoon in Kirkby Lonsdale

Kirkby Lonsdale seem to like to host things - a great 7 aside tournament for a couple of years - and now a friendly between them and three invited teams before the serious stuff of the season gets going. Thanks for asking us, excellent idea!

Rossendale U15s started brightly enough in slightly experimental formation with a bit of 'fire power' warming the touch line for the first half, against a large and spirited Garstang team - Cup opponents for the boys later this year too. The structures looked good and some of the individual contributions were outstanding including a maiden try for one of our newest recruits out on the wing - good work Tom. The boys turned round at half time and duly completed their task with a 17 - 0 win.

We've also played KL at 15 aside a couple of times and had the better of them...not today. The second game saw a fired up home team two or three times take the benefit of the bouncing ball, inaccurate pass or weak defence to race into the lead. Conversely the Rossy lads seemed to have the better structure and probably more possession but nothing seemed to work for them. With a solitary try in the second half by Rory they seemed ready to get back into things only for the same luck to befall them and finished second best 31 - 5.

A final shortened match with Carlisle (supplemented by lads from KL) proved a match too far after the KL game. Our defence wasn't good enough and frustrations began to boil over. A closing try from our man of the afternoon Cameron was scant consolation in a game we didn't do justice to, losing 19 - 5.

Many thanks again to hosts Kirkby Lonsdale and also to Garstang and Carlisle for a great afternoon played entirely in the friendly spirit that the organisers intended.