Rout! 60-6
Rochdale Hornets are top of the National league. Go on, say it again. Say it s-l-o-w-l-y - and savour every second of it.
Hornets complete demolition of Dewsbury on Sunday was a performance worthy of taking any team to the top - and how the travelling Hornets enjoyed their afternoon. A superb turnout saw Radney Bowker, Ian Watson, Damian Ball and Richard Pachniuk turn a bemused Rams inside out and set up a parade of quite superb tries.
But at half time, you'd never have guessed what was to come. For the first 40 minutes, Hornets looked like a side that had had three weeks off - mis-timing and forcing passes; stuttering and failing to really spark.
We were off to a reasonable start - Pachniuk finding space and then Damian Ball who steamed in after 10 minutes; Jon Roper's opportunist intercept and offload for Radney Bowker after 13 minutes; 12 points to the good and almost up with the clock. But a string of pedantic penalties (Dewsbury took the count 8-4 - draw your own conclusions) gave Dewsbury repeat-repeat sets close to Hornets' line. Sub Mark Barlow capitalised and snuck in for a sucker try from a yard and Dewsbury were back in the mix at 12-6. A Mick Nanyn penalty gave Hornets daylight at 14-6, but it was an edgy tea-bar queue at half time, with Hornets fans sucking their teeth and shaking heads as to whether we could shrug off three weeks worth of cobwebs.
But whatever Hally puts in the half time tea - I'll have a pint. Hornets came out a different team - focused, clinical and ruthless. Pachniuk began the deluge with a one yard sucker punch of his own on 42 minutes. Bowker was involved again two minutes later, splitting the Dewsbury defence on half way, weaving infield to draw the fullback before posting Paul Owen in for a trademark try.
The next set of possession, Bowker again, Watson and Paul Owen combined to find Gareth Price arriving bang on cue - he stepped through a series of tackles to score under the black-dot (51 minutes). Ten minutes in and Hornets were 32-6 clear. Amazing.
But there was much more to come. Another break by Bowker found Dave Larder in support, a superb inside ball from him found Jon Roper who scooted in on 55 minutes. He was followed to the line five minutes later by the industrious Damian Ball who notched his second off an immaculate flat ball from Watson.
Next it was Pachniuk's turn to split the line - a jink and a dummy from acting half saw Pach steal 25 easy metres before handing on to Watson who finished the job from 30 metres out. .
Not unsurprisingly, it was Radney Bowker who made the next break - another outrageous dummy and sprint into space, his break was superbly anticipated by Dave Larder who backed up to score.
The coup-de-grace was as good as we'd seen all afternoon. Matt Leigh and Paul Southern exchanging passes at close quarters; Pachniuk making huge yards to get involved and rewarded with a peach of a pass to score his second, Nanyn's conversion making it 10 out of 11 for him.
At the final hooter, the Hornets fans rose to salute the most complete performance of the season - and, to be fair, the fans had a blinder too; outsinging the home support from first whistle to last and contributing to a great afternoon for our club.
"It was one of our best attacking performances of the season," Said Hally afterwards, adding, "Just as pleasing was our defence."
Indeed, Sunday's result will have made one or two people in the National League sit up and take notice. But most importantly it was a real show of both team and club spirit - a distillation of what's really possible when we all pull together. This was typified on Sunday when 12 Hornets supporters dug deep to find the money necessary to keep Radney Bowker (rugby genius: official!) in the red, white and blue for another month.
These are great times to be a Hornets supporter - roll on next Sunday.
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