We headed down the motorway expecting to arrive plenty early with time to re-focus, get the journey out of our legs and practice our moves. The M62 put paid to that and due to an accident resulting in diverting via tour de Lancashire, we ended up arriving late.
Arriving in Rochdale to torrential sideways rain wasn’t ideal so we knew it would be a tough day with a greasy ball. We were low on subs due to some illness and everyone was playing out of position.
The first twenty minutes flew by scoreless with both teams holding their own. Rochdale put the ball down over the line first and it was nicely converted. Five minutes later following a big scrum on the line, Rochdale barged over to score again and once again converted.
Time for Ossett to refocus.
Another twenty minutes went by before the next points were scored, this time by an opportunistic Sarah for Ossett who took Rochdale’s spilled ball and with a ferocious hand off, put the ball over the line. Sadly, unconverted. Half time score was 14-5 to the hosts.
When the second half resumed it didn’t take Ossett long to capitalise with the forwards working hard to push past the gain line resulting in a gap for scrum half Sian to pick and go in a flop over the line that saw our next points go on the board. Kick was unconverted.
At this point due to a couple of injuries, there were more backs in this scrum than forwards!
Another solid chunk of time passed by with both teams being resilient to prevent the other from scoring but skipper Izzie made a massive run to the line and scored our third. She was unable to convert her own kick.
Shortly after Rochdale retaliated and got over the line which looked to be a double movement, the referee awarded the try and the kick was good. Sarah decided she wasn’t having that so sprinted downfield after play resumed to score her second of the day. Another kick sadly just wide of the posts.
In the dying minutes, Rochdale gained a scrum close to their try line. The forwards did all that they could to hold it out but their strength saw them force their way through and the try was awarded. No conversion this time from Rochdale who had otherwise had an excellent day kicking.
Full time came and the resulting score was 26-20 to Rochdale. An evenly matched and hard fought battle by both teams in gruesome conditions.
Coach would like to say a special mention to the forwards who all played a full 80 minutes and did so without complaining (at least to her face) which was a bit of a shock to their system!
Player of the Match: Rachael Kitts, sponsored by John Mosby
Opposition pick: Ella Burgess
Silly Goose: Sarah
Try scorers:
Sarah 2
Izzie 1
Sian 1