Another good win for the Moss Laners (From St Helens Star)

Another good win for the Moss Laners

8:41pm Sunday 17th March 2013 in Sport

LSH returned to Moss Lane for the visit of Rochdale on a cold, late winter afternoon and a pitch that resembled Derby County’s Baseball ground circa mid seventies!

LSH started the game attacking the Windle end and were soon in front after neat work by Hudson on the wing set up Stanley who duly went over in the corner – Smith converted to make the score 7-0.

However Rochdale began to up their game and after thirteen minutes were unlucky not to score after good work by the Dale winger nearly resulted in a try.

After sixteen minutes LSH found themselves a player down when Mario Bonati was sin binned for being offside in the scrum, and Dale were awarded a penalty which was converted to make the score 7-3.

Rochdate then enjoyed a good spell of pressure and appeared to be coping with the muddy conditions better than LSH, and this was emphasised after twenty three minutes when a superb crossfield kick to Dales flying left winger saw him touch down in the corner only for the referee to bizarrely award a free kick to LSH.

Finally LSH began to find their rhythm particularly the excellent Greg Smith who had a superb game and caused a lot of problems for the Dale defence, and it was Smith who instigated the next try after a fine kick to the corner saw LSH win the resulting lineout, with second rower M Williams breaking through Dale backline to make the score 12-3. (31 mins played).

On thirty seven minutes LSH were awarded a penalty for obstruction which Smith clipped over the posts to make it 15-3, and then a fine fifty yard run through the mud by Neil Hull touched down under the posts to leave Smith with an easy conversion and the scoreboard reading 22-3 to LSH.

Rochdale started the second half brightly but were soon under pressure with LSH looking to score a fourth try to secure another valuable bonus point.

After fifty minutes they went close after Matt Cunliffe raced forward to the corner but unluckily dropped the ball just short of the line.

On fifty nine minutes LSH thought they had scored when a great run by Hull resulted in him going over, but the ref blew for a forward pass!

However the fourth try did eventually happen in the sixty eighth minute after great play by Stanley on the wing who found Smith and he raced over in the corner to touch down.

The last ten minutes saw LSH ease off a little bit with Dale enjoying their best spell of possession and deservedly score a consolation try in the last minute.

So another good win and performance by LSH which sets them up for next weeks top of the table clash with promotion rivals Sale, at Moss Lane .