Rossendale' catch Preston on the hop in best display of season

And so on to game 2, with some positive feedback coming from the previous opposition coach, which is always nice to receive. Now this performance was nothing short of a belter, in plain English. It was genuinely exciting to be on the pitch and see the passion and commitment of the team as they really asserted their presence. There was a golden moment which summed up the team's determination when from THEIR restart, Dan Stevens pressed, chased, harried and tagged his way forwards relentlessly, resulting in Preston retreating over their own line- fittingly from the turnover, Dan then rubbed it in by scoring. The response from the whole team was magnificent, the tagging first class and Preston were not given an inch, Rowan Tweedale was in commandingly intimidating form, and Jason Wilkinson did not concede half a yard, indeed Jason was tigerish in the challenge all day.
Ieuan hit the Grasshoppers hard with a quick fire hat trick in the first half - then Jamie Boxall, making his debut in the under 8s after joing during the Winter Freeze, scored a great try. Jamie showed excellent running, passing and support play, and he really threw himself into the match with great enthusiasm. Tom Leech had been relatively quiet until now but he turned on his electrifying pace to drive us furthe ahead before Ieuan and two more from Dan ensured a 5 try winning margin.
It was a superb effort, everything came together in those 10 minutes, the team knew it, they put everything into this game and a happy Rossendale contingent trooped off to lunch - and a few folk started to dare to dream of cups - or plates !

Sadly as we all know, sport can be cruel and unforgiving, but again , it's all experience and lessons are there to be learned.

Cue lunch break - as it turned out, the " hand of death"..............