With debuts for several players, including Mike Hall, Paul Steadman, Adam Kettle, Josh Walker, Jamie Guy, George Wood & Laurence Arnold, in addition to several others returning to the club including Stylianos Theoklitou-Panagiotou, Mark Steadman & Simon Honey, the team had a new look to the one which finished last season, and in the first ten minutes of the game it looked as though North Ribblesdale could be in for a long afternoon as Phoenix came flying out of the blocks.

After strong early breaks from Ryan Peacey and Mark Steadman, it was the forwards who layed on the first try of the afternoon with a familiar 5 metre catch & drive seeing number 8 Adam Kettle claim his first try in Phoenix colours, converted by fly half Jamie Guy.

This was quickly followed by another score, this time the backs showed what they could do as the ball was spun wide to Simon Honey who rounded his opposite man and put full-back George Wood in under the posts for another converted try.

As always though, North Ribblesdale responded strongly and enjoyed the majority of the final 15 minutes of the half as their forwards retained posession well and eventually worked an extra man on the blind side for an unconverted try in the corner.

The first ten minutes of the second half were pretty even, once again North Ribblesdale were putting phases together well, and although Phoenix looked threatening in posession too often they were looking for the ‘miracle pass’ rather than retaining posession themselves and going through the phases.

The second half deadlock was eventually broken thanks to a moment of magic from the impressive George Wood, who collected a wayward Ribblesdale kick just inside the visitor’s half and then went on a mazy 30 metre run before touching down for an unconverted try out wide.

Once again, the visitors responded with a try of their own as they worked an overlap to score out wide for another unconverted try.

The see-saw nature of the second half continued, with Phoenix once again working a try though the backs, and man-of-the-match Wood once again evading two tackles before offloading to Mark Steadman who went over to the left of the posts for the host’s fourth try, converted by Guy.

It would be the visitors who would have the final say on the afternoon though as again they worked on opening out wide for their impressive full-back to score with the final play of the game.