Rossendale U12s 35 - 31 Blackpool U12s

Last Sunday saw Rossendale U12s play host to Blackpool at Marl Pits. The game started brightly after Rossendale knocked on from the kick-off with the Dale pack destroying the Blackpool scrum to win the ball against the head; a quick feed out to Ben Ludlam to score Rossendale’s first try, which PJ Butler converted. Shortly afterwards, Blackpool equalised with a converted try. With 12 minutes on the clock, Rossendale scored again, with a first try for Malarchy Graham, duly converted by PJ Butler. Blackpool scored again, but missed the conversion to end the half, 14-12.

The second half restart was almost a repeat of the first, but this time in Blackpool’s favour, with Blackpool scoring almost immediately after Dale failed to deal with the kick-off. Shortly afterwards, Blackpool appeared to be getting on top with another converted try, but Rossendale fought back and Max Lyth went over to score the next try with PJ Butler converted again. After a period of back and forth play, the powerful Blackpool number 8 barrelled over for Blackpool’s final, unconverted, try. With 5 minutes left on the clock, Dale were 2 scores behind, but this was soon rectified as Will Peel scored, again converted by PJ Butler, to leave a tense few minutes. Dale kept the pressure on, and as the referee called the last play, Dale stole the Blackpool lineout and Isaac Cornwall drove over to winning try. The metronomic PJ Butler added the extras to end the game 35-31. Tackle of the day was one of the many from Jordan Fortune where the Blackpool prop certainly knew he’d been tackled, but the Man of the Match went to Isaac Cornwall for commitment and work all around the field. The U12s have no game this week and will be training hard for the visit of Bolton the following weekend.