Hillside Hawks 46 Keighley Cats 14
MATCH REPORT
Hillside brought Women,s Rugby league back to Rochdale with this opening League fixture at Balderstone Park against a strong Keighley team bolstered by an influx of players from Halifax R.FU.Despite the absence of five first teamers Hillside opened with a solid squad and took the game to the opposition from the start, opening the scoring after seven minutes when scrum half Jenny Russell dummied her way through for a score which Andrea Dobson converted. Keighley responded well with strong drives led by second row Wood but were met with strong defence across the field with Vicky Molyneaux outstanding at centre.
The lead was increased after 14 minutes when a superb break by Dobson led to an unconverted try by centre Jenny Welsby, but Keighley,s reponse was strong as they began to produce their best spell of the game and were rewarded on 22 minutes when Wood crossed for the visitors for an unconverted score.
Despite this set back Hillside were dominating the game ably led by the driving runs of Dobson and Joennie Aspin but were stunned on the half hour mark with a try against the run of play when the visitors stand off Ackroyd produced a huge kick on only the second tackle from her own ten metre line with the Hawks defence, intent on attack, caught out of position.Despite a tremendous effort from Zoe Robinson and Heather Tranter it was the Keighley centre Hussain who won the race for a score under the posts which Wood converted.With the scores level it was vital that Hillside regained the ascendancy before half time and they did so superbly as full back Beth Sutcliffe made up for her previous positional error in the best possible way following up her own chip kick to dive over for a try which Dobson converted.
The third quarter of the game was closely contested with just one try for each side, Russell scoring her second for the home side with the extras once again from Dobson and Watson scoring for the visitors but Hillside were to dominate the final period. The pace of forwards Jen Connor and Dee Llewellyn coupled with the support of Megan Eastwood and Leanne Llewellyn had worn down the Keighley defence and Hawks began to take advantage of the extra space, led by stand off Terri Davey they bgane to show their true handling ability leading to a try in the corner on 62 minutes for Ashley Deas with Dobson applying salt to the wound with a tremendous touchline conversion. This was swiftly followed by tries for Apin, Dee Llewellyn and Dobson, with Dobson converting all three to complete a superb opening day for the Hawks. Back to top