Lancashire Cup Round 4

Today was a good day for rubgy, and Didsbury Barbarians came up against the strongest team in their Lancashire Cup league group, in Rochdale. The visitors were clearly well disciplined and professional in everything they did. They arrived in matching club shirts & ties, warmed up noisily and went through psychological as well as physical preparations in the dressing room. Heck, they even had their registration paperwork in order to present before the kick-off.

Rochdale won the toss, electing to play with the sun on their backs. They were soon into their stride, showing off a robust pack and very slick backs. They took advantage of field position, kicked well to touch from every penalty and made a go of it whenever they were inside the Didsbury 22. Most impressively, from their scrum half outwards they looked secure in their passing, confident on the ball and were always looking to take advantage of their overlaps. Over the course of the match they ran in a total of five converted tries – the first couple might have been attributed to some weak tackles by the home team, however most were just from good simple rugby, well executed.

Enough of the visitors, it did not go all their way, and the scoreline betrays the strong performance given by the Didsbury team. As usual, the front row was rock solid. This was arguable the best pack we have encountered this season, yet we were still able to hold our ground when scrummaging and even steal a few. Cameron got around the field impressively to make some great cover tackles, even on their backs. RJ was monumental once he got the ball in hand, Oskar put in his usual reliable shift, fast to protect the breakdown and steadfast in set pieces. Hooker duties passed between Jack and Giacomo, the line out was clinical and particularly the driving maul which would have lead to a first half try had we grounded it sooner. Sean, Martin, Will, Patrick, Tom, all played well defensively, and they had plenty of it to do!

The backs suffered for a lack of ball possession, and when it came it wasn’t clean, testament to the superior organisation of Rochdale’s rush defence. Josh started for his first match in a while, he played with grit until retiring after the last of a sequence of late tackles. Harry stepped up for his first full match at fly-half, showing a calm demeanour and fast thinking given the difficulties he faced. The three-quarters did not often get to show what they could do in attack but covered the space well in defence. And Miles at full back also gave a great account of himself showing excellent positional and ball skills.

The penalty count was fairly one-sided and these were all awarded justifiably against the home team for giving lip to the ref, offside not retreating after kicks, offside at breakdowns in general, and lack of composure leading to foul language (again presumably towards the ref)?
However, from a 35-0 deficit (HT 28-0), Didsbury appeared to finish the strongest, Logan breaking the line to score the only home try. With another hour of play we might have pulled back one or two more scores. Alas, the final whistle came on cue and it ended 35-5 to Rochdale.