Bury U13s 19 – 33 Rossendale U13s

Rossendale U13s travelled the short drive down the M66 to looking to avenge last season’s heavy defeat at Bury. This season, the RFU continuum dictates that the game is played on a full sized pitch and with 15 players, so this was the first time out under these rules. As this was a training game, it consisted of 3 periods of play, to allow more time for adjustments or specific coaching during the breaks.

Bury took first blood, taking the ball through a few phases of play, before breaking through to score their first converted try. However, Rossendale were undaunted, and fought back almost straight away with a try from debutant, Mark Rutherford-Shaw, duly converted by PJ Butler to level the score at 7 – 7. A period of committed play followed with both sides making progress up the pitch, only to be pegged back by solid defences, but Bury pounced on a mix-up at the back of the scrum on the Dale 22 to score an unconverted try. A few minutes later, a nice running line saw PJ Butler make a break through the Bury defence then feed the ball out to another debutant, Bradley Harris, for Dale’s second try. This ended the first period, tied at 12 – 12, but Dale were on the ascendency.

The second period started with the same high levels of intensity, but neither side were able to break through for the majority of the period. However, the deadlock was broken by a great break by Ciaran Campbell to score Dale’s third try under the sticks. A straightforward conversion from in front of the posts from PJ Butler made the score 12 – 19 and the end of the second period.

As the final period, the Dale lads were showing a good deal of confidence and making many hard runs forward. One of these saw Mark Rutherford-Shaw rattle through the Bury line, and weave his way past the covering defenders to score his second try, again successfully converted by PJ Butler. At this point, Dale were dominating the game, but this appeared to lead to a little complacency and they let Bury back into the game. With a converted try from Bury, followed by being awarded a penalty inside the Dale 22, it looked like the game could be shifting back towards Bury. However, this seemed to be the jolt that the Dale lads needed, and they came back strong in the last 5 minutes. The Dale defence snuffed out the danger at the penalty, pushing Bury back towards their own half and, with the last play of the game, Mark Rutherford-Shaw went through for his hat-trick, converted by PJ Butler, to end the game Bury 19 – 33 Rossendale. Man of the match was selected by the referee and awarded to Tom Unsworth for his all-round performance.

The whole team put in 100% today, with some immense tackling and hard, driving runs, so the pre-season and Wednesday night training looks like it’s paying off. Every single one of the lads should be proud of the effort and commitment displayed this morning, but I did want to specifically mention the great debuts today from Callum Jackson, Bradley Harris and Mark Rutherford-Shaw, who certainly didn’t show any lack of experience – welcome to the team!

Thanks to Deon and the lads from Bury for their hospitality and for the hard, fair match, and I look forward to our next meeting in the Blacksticks Challenge on 16th December.

Thanks to all the parents for the support and lifts today. I hope you enjoyed it, because I certainly did! We play Fylde at home in another training game next Sunday and I hope to see a repeat performance.