Rossendale U13s 35* – 5 Tarleton U13s

A sunny Sunday morning welcomed Tarleton U13s to Rossendale for round 2 of the Blackstick’s Challenge in what was to prove to be a tough encounter for the visitors.

The Dale forwards gave another immense performance showing how well they've improved as the season has progressed and showing how, if they can get the basics right, victories will follow. Tarleton just weren’t equipped to deal with the back row forwards Rhys Tighe and Mark Rutherford-Shaw; whilst they tackled well, their real impact was going forward with direct, hard runs into, and through, the visitor’s defence. The front five of Jordan Fortune, Jake Ruding, Isaac Cornwall, Cameron Potts and Sam Irving held firm in the scrum and cleared most rucks with real intensity and good decision making. Relative newcomer Hadley Newell put in a solid performance at blind-side flanker, Alex Kilshaw showed an increased level of confidence in the scrum-half position and linked well with stand-off PJ Butler. In the backs, team captain Ciaran Campbell marshalled well from full back and, along with Max Lyth, tackled well to continue to keep Tarleton out for most of the game. Tom Unsworth, playing at outside centre for the first time, made a couple of excellent breaks and performed well in this temporary position for him and the wingers Bradley Harris, George Laight and Ahren Hart were on hand to receive the pass from the breaks by the quick Dale forwards.

Dale started the game with the kick-off down the hill and kept Tarleton in their own half for the next 5 minutes or so with some spirited Dale defence. At the first of several attempts, Mark Rutherford-Shaw picked up from the base of the scrum and charged down the blind side, but it was too narrow and ended up in touch. However not to be disheartened, at the next scrum he repeated the move from a scrum that had wheeled almost 45 degrees, leaving him to run the long way round and surge through the scrambling Tarleton defence to score his first try. PJ Butler added the conversion. Dale’s second try also came from a scrum, this time won against the head and again scored by Mark Rutherford-Shaw and converted by PJ Butler. Mark Rutherford-Shaw came close again a couple of minutes later when he and second-row Sam Irving made a break down the right wing, both drawing defenders and popping a couple of passes to each other, but not quite making it through to score. The first half ended with no further scores for either side.

Dale came out of the blocks for the second half very quickly, with Rhys Tighe receiving the Tarleton kick-off and ran straight back through the Tarleton defence to score the first of his four tries, unfortunately not converted on this occasion. The next try again went to Rhys Tighe after a crunching tackle on the Tarleton centre, he was quickly back on his feet to steal the ball and run 65m to score under the posts, which PJ Butler converted successfully. After this, a few minutes of to and fro rugby took place, with both sides making progress only to be repelled by the solid defences. It was Dale that got the upper hand with some excellent rucking from Isaac Cornwall and Jordan Fortune, Sam Irving received a short ball and fed the “not-so-secret weapon”, Rhys Tighe who went on to score again. On the restart, Ciaran Campbell scored directly from receiving the kick with a weaving run around the defence to score under the posts, again converted by PJ Butler. At this point, you could have forgiven the Tarleton lads if their heads had gone down. To their credit, this didn’t happen and it was Tarleton who were next to cross the whitewash with their first try. Shortly afterwards, Mark Rutherford-Shaw repeated his excellent work from the back of the scrum to score his third try and the game closed with a try from Rhys Tighe in the final play of the game.

There were plenty of candidates for man of the match, but it was awarded to Rhys Tighe for his aggressive, attacking running and tackling (and the small matter of four tries to his name).

Now that I've got my voice back :-) thanks to Elliot Lewis for refereeing and to all the parents, friends and grandparents for the "16th man" support from the touch lines.

Now, despite the praise earlier in this report and the nice victory, there were still areas we didn’t get right. We need to build upon what we did very well today and keep improving the other areas, and gradually we’ll become the all-round team we want to be. To do that you need to keep up the effort and intensity in training and remember to apply what we learn in the next games. So see you all on Wednesday! Well done lads!