09 March 2014

The home side started positively and Ian Hardman was held just short in the short in the opening exchanges. It didn’t take long for them to capitalise on their pressure, as Greg Worthington offloaded to Etu Uaisele, who exhibited tremendous strength to score his first try for Rovers on his home debut.  A few minutes later  Steve Crossley was held out just short and Uaisele stormed in for his second try, only to see it disallowed for a forward pass. Rochdale saw the disallowed try as an opportunity for them to turn the game on its head and appeared to have levelled the scores, but were judged to be offside from the kick. Rovers responded to this attack and two minutes later spread the ball left, where Uaisele beat his first man, then produced a phenomenal, overhead offload to the supporting Ian Hardman to score a try on his return to the side. Crossley was held just short, creating a springboard for Moore to attempt to dance his way through, before Ellis dived over to take the home side into a comfortable lead. Sharp collected a pass which had gone to ground and glided by his opposing number. Moore's short ball sent Tim Spears through, who was unfortunately unable to take full advantage of Hardman supporting on his inside. Rovers still had one try in them before the interval however, and with just over five minutes remaining Briggs gave a skip pass to Uaisele, who unselfishly returned the ball inside to Worthington to give Featherstone a twenty-eight point lead entering the dressing rooms.

The second half started ideally for Featherstone, as the Hornets knocked on from the kick-off, Lockwood was held just short of the line and then Briggs was able to burst over from first receiver. They continued the momentum with a break from George Flanagan, who then utilised the run of Ben Hellewell on the inside of him to reward Rovers with the second try in quick succession. Five minutes later and they appeared to be in again, when Moore shot through, but his pass was foiled by Rochdale’s alert fullback English. Andy Kain had an immediate impact, as his fine kick was met by the soaring Uaisele, who got the better of the opposition defence. That wasn’t the end of Kain’s effect on proceedings, as quarter of an hour into the second period Millard’s skip pass allowed Sam Te’o to go down the outside of Will Sharp for a certain try, were it not for the determination of Kain to cover back and force him out to touch. From this Featherstone broke downfield and a minute later Worthington fed the ball to Uaisele, who raced in from forty metres out to dive over the line. The supporters went into uproar, as he secured his hat trick on his home debut and establish a fifty point lead for his side.

Rochdale scored a consolation try following penalty on the Rovers line for stripping the ball. This awoke the home side, who were keen to end the game on a high. Andy Ellis popped the ball up to Sharp, who blitzed through the gap, sprinted round the opposing fullback and left their defence for dead.