I could spend all week doing a report describing the game and the tries today but I bet if I did none of you blighters would read the damn thing anyway.

So I will try and keep it short an sweet, hopefully the latter stages of the report wont see me ramble to much as this evening the amber nectar has not passed my lips in any great quantity.

Despite conceding home advantage again and a reasonably lengthy travel it was nice to be able to get a game under our belts and kick the new year off with a flourish.

My worst fears where not realised and the team was not to badly affected by the up and coming exams. Despite having several players still absent through other commitments we managed a team and three subs including a welcome return by Salvatore after a 2 year absence.

Fylde have a good set of players who worked hard today to try and achieve the best they could. However the slick ball handling by all the Rossendale team, the tireless work ethics of the forwards and some awesome backs defence put paid to this being a banana skin of a game for the Dale.

Whilst Steve and I both feel we shouldn’t get carried away by the result overall , we will have more difficult teams to face and that will be the tester, the fact that we have not trained on a pitch for about 8 weeks and only played 1 game in the last month belays the way in which we played some scintillating rugby today.

Try scorers for Rossendale were Burgess 3, Cloughy 3 , Ben Paul 2, Jake mann 2, Tom Mallinson and Hully.
Conversions by Jake mann 8 and Hully 2.

Take your pick of the try of the game there were so many to choose from but for me the excitement of watching that ball fly sweetly hand to hand to reach the winger Ben Paul who scooted over with pace took some beating. His first was great but the second went even quicker through hands with the final offload by Lowthion in to the ever grateful Bens hands for him to finish with a 15 yard gallop over the white wash.

There was also Jakes second try which im not going to describe just to get at Steve- You should have been watching the game Mann.

Well go on then , Hully started the rumble on the 22 with an inside pass to Lowthion. Great show of power in the running through several defenders took him within cooey of the line. The last defenders held strong and Burgess was brought to the ground. The leg kick and upper body strength cast the defenders off and he was able to turn and from the floor offload to Jake who was like a streak of lighting coming through in support and scored a well deserved try. Nice. Very Nice.

Mallinson and Cloughy tackled like demons yet again in the defence with Ben Lyth on the receiving end of one tackle meaning he had been well and truly CLOUGHED. To his credit he showed no signs of ill effect and continued on in the game.

Thanks be to Hully today for starting out at ten. Both he and Jake had storming games and have formed a great partnership. They both appear to read each others game well and the swapping and changing of half back roles between themselves must cause havoc to the opposition.

One other little matter to clear up. The points we got today brought us right back down on our negative points difference. Only minus 5 now.

Okay would the defendant WELLS stand up please, ahem…. Winger …pass …offload ….try …. break even points difference.
Wells’ defence : the winger was to flat to pass to.
Prosecution : submits M’lud photographic evidence of said scene at three stages of the incident ( courtesy of our Private Eye).See photos from today.
M’lud :Winger flat ? Nah.
Wells was subsequently convicted and banned from the number 7 shirt for evermore. He now lives his life peacefully as a gormless dough kneading phone answering open side prop ! Allo Neenos

Finally :
I can go on and praise individual players all day long about what they did good and about different events during the game they were involved with but I want to condense that and just congratulate the whole team on the result and performance today. Well done.

W e kept our heads to the end and continued to play with respect towards the opposition which both myself and Steve are grateful for.

Burgess took the man of the match, not only for the great tries he scored but the try assists as well. He looked for support and found it many times over. He looked fit and back to his best.

Mason ( all is forgiven) took the forward award for never giving in and fighting for everything,. Great display of rugby. Hot on his heels was Joe Andrew for another Captains knock and a rightful mention for his offload that created Cloughys first.
But , well done to Mason for the award today.

Thanks for everyone’s support today Parents et al. Once again great to see and hear.

Training this week as I said after the match.

Big game to look forward to against Blackburn next week. Lets all be available for that one please.