Rossendale go down with all tags blazing !!

And so Spring duly arrived after the bizarre " Ice Age" experience at Marl Pits last week.........warmth, sunshine and no need for snorkel or flippers - especially as West Park had a very nice artificial pitch.
Both teams played very positively with strong direct running, good support play and passing - there were relatively few tries scored which demonstrated a much stronger defensive performance than we've seen recently. Indeed, the strongest improvement on the day was in tagging and defence, everyone got stuck in and there was some especially determined tacking from Jason Wilkinson, Ieuan Bissell, Dan Stevens and Thomas Whitaker but the whole team got involved again today.
For the record,there were 2 games of 20 minutes, the first we lost 1-2, and the second by 4-6 having been 3-2 to the good with just 10 minutes to play.
On the positive side, to add to the much improved tagging display, we saw some excellent team passing and support play, one try was scored following a string of six passes, a real team effort. If there were areas which let us down today, it was in handling - the ball was dropped at the vital moment on a number of occasions, losing momentum and letting the opposition off the hook - and secondly at times we allowed the opposition time to regroup by not releasing the ball quickly when tagged, but this is all part of the weekly learning in match situations.
Try scorers this week were Tom Leech with two, both resembling an "Usain Bolt" sprint, Ieuan Bissell who delivered a magnificent jinking, dodging and juggling solo run that had everyone mesmerised, Dan Stevens with a burst through a pack of defenders and a first under 8 try for Tiler Lusty, who completed a brilliant team effort by being in the right place to receive from Rowan Tweedale.
Just like last week it was very hard to pick a star man, in fact there was a strong case for everyone involved, but we asked their referee and he chose Rowan ( Wrecking Ball) Tweedale for his overall commitment and attitude throughout.

The under 7 group was strongly represented this week , again two games played in excellent positive spirit, Rossendale emerging ahead at 6-4 in the first game and the consensus was a draw of 10-10 in the second . Shaun Stephen had a field day running in 5 tries ( he was claiming 6 later, who's to argue?) , and there were contributions also from Charlie Leah. It was very pleasing to see newcomer Jamie Boxall receiving man of the match in only his second turn out, running in 3 tries and grabbing numerous tags - well done Jamie , great stuff !! We are going to need more help moving forward for Martin in running the under 7 matches, including recording details of the matches - if any parents want to pitch in and get involved, I can highly recommend it, much better than freezing in the cold :-) All contributions on the day, no matter how small, are both really helpful and genuinely appreciated. It really is a case of many hands making light work.

Overall a very enjoyable morning all round. Reminder lads, Mother's Day next week, Vale of Lune tournament the week after, looking forward to it !!