3 try burst seals great win for Rossendale

Date published: 11 November 2009

West Hartlepool 12 vs Rossendale RUFC 17

A ten minute burst where Rossendale scored 3 tries early on in the second half was enough for the Rawtenstall based club to leave the north east with 4 points and a victory over West Hartlepool.

The home side had much the better of the opening exchanges. Dale struggled to keep a hold of possession and far too often committed unforced errors which lead to West Hartlepool having the lion share of territory.

After a sustained period of attack on the Dale line the home side took the lead when their outside centre strolled through some poor defence to open the scoring.

Dale continued to squander possession and soon after they conceded for a second time when their defence was breached on the blindside following some great lead up work which involved some strong carries by the West Hartlepool forwards and was finished with a well weighted pass to their fullback who went over in the left hand corner. This conversion missed which made the score 12-0 30 mins gone and Dale with it all to do.

Dale where then down to 14 when Ian Marshall was ajudged to have come from an off side position to win the ball close to his own line. The job got even tougher when a few minutes later Bingham tracked back to snuff out a promising West Hartlepool break. After making a good tackle he failed to release the player before playing the ball and was also yellow carded.

With Dale down to 13 West Hartlepool were keen to make the most of their numerical advantage and kicked for the touchline from the resultant penalty. This however proved to be the wrong decision as some gutsy defence lead by Short and Keys in the pack held out to the half time whistle blew.

Still down to 13 men away from home and down 12-0 turning into a stiff breeze you'd be forgiven for thinking West Hartlepool win this game comfortably, but this Dale side have self belief in abundance after back to back promotions and within minutes were in for a try when Mackenzie broke through the line with a big hand off then had the pace and power to run the 30 min to score just right of the up rights. Conversion De Jager. 12-7.

From the kick off Coach Collins caught the ball busted straight through the West Hartlepool pack and was off to try line, after drawing the full back he passed to De jager supporting well and he cantered in to tie the scores.

The third and final try came 5 mins later when the influential Mackenzie scored his 2nd and ultimately the winning try of the match following some good play by Pole.

This was certainly not a complete performance but the continued improvement of the scrum and good lineout work from Tim Fourie as well as an excellent display from Danny Harrison at scrum half following the rearranged back line with James Bramhall and Arno DeJager playing 1 further out due to injuries to the usual midfild pairing were the positives coming out of the game. Rossendale will be looking to climb further up the table when they host Beverly on Saturday at home.