Rossendale 43 Wirral 0 Injury hit

ON an extremely cold day, Wirral travelled to Rossendale for this rearranged game with the team struggling with injuries and unavailabilities, which left the away team bereft of eight regular first team players.

In the first half Wirral played up the slope and against the wind with a view to holding the home team to a few points at half-time, knowing that they will have the benefit of the elements in the second half.

From the outset Rossendale applied pressure as they were given the opportunity to run with the ball and the Wirral tackling was not up to the required standard.

The first try was scored after seven minutes when a kick over the Wirral defence allowed George Peel to pick up and score with ease.

Two further tries were scored in the first half through Peel and McKibbin to give Rosendale a 17-0 lead at half-time.

The second half brought Wirral more into the game and despite having play in the Rossendale 20m area they could not find a way through a well marshalled defence nor control the ball for long enough periods.

When Wirral lost the ball, Rossendale were quick to counter attack and thus exposed the lack of effective tackling by Wirral, which resulted in Rossendale running in three further tries all of which were converted.

The final play of the game saw the Rossendale scrum half, Harrison Moulding jink through the Wirral defence from 5m out to complete the scoring.

With a more effective back row some of these tries could have been avoided although Matt Dowler battled hard to stem the Rossendale backs and make ground when in possession.

The injury list gets longer and Wirral must dig into their resources to salvage something out of this season.