Great Second Half
Stand
Haven traveled to Yorkshire
buoyed by that tremendous win over Halifax last week, but with
several enforced changes - Joel Penny was out , Steve Kirkbride
was in at no 7 while Carl Sice also missed out with Gary Purdham
standing in.
Rovers are not having a happy time of it right now and Haven
got of to the best possible start . Rovers knocked on in their
first set of six, and from the resulting possession stand-off
Leroy Joe danced over untouched from 15 metres out, touching
down under the posts to give Mick Nanyn an easy conversion, much
to the delight of the vociferous Haven travelling support . Then
Rovers had a ten-minute spell during which they were the dominant
side and scored two unconverted tries through Maun and Dooler
.
Haven reasserted themselves with playmakers Aaron Lester and
Leroy Joe dominating matters . On sixteen minutes scrum-half
Steve Kirkbride ran onto a perfectly weighted and delayed Lester
pass in front of the Rovers’ posts. And five minutes later
Lester’s chip bounced perfectly in-goal for the onrushing
Leroy Joe to touch down. Two more easy kicks for Nanyn Haven
were 18-8 ahead
Rovers were not ready to lie down, however,as Josh Weeden, who
went over on the left, . An excellent touchline conversion from
Liam Finn made it 14-18 with all to play for.
But just before the half time hooter we grabbed a vital try as
Craig Calvert, squeezed in the left corner, after taking a pass
from David Seeds. Nanyn missed the kick, but it sent us in at
half time with a handy 22-14 lead .
The second half resumed with the Haven playing down the slope
and looking well set to dominate matters , however it was nip
and tuck for almost 20 minutes with the scoreline remaining unchanged
. However a Craig Chambers try on 3/4 time was the game breaker
after which Havan ran away with it. A Rovers defensive foul-up
on their line seven minutes later gave sub Gary Purdham an easy
touch down just to the right of the Rovers’ posts. The defensive
collapse continued when, two minutes later, the non-stop Haven
full-back Broadbent latched onto a Kirkbride break to score under
the posts. This, and the three easy Nanyn conversions, meant
that Rovers were down and out at 14-40. Rovers finished with
a late converted try to make the final score Haven 40 Rovers
20 but none of the 1200 gate could deny the best team had won
.
Another great team performance and result on the back of last
weeks win over Halifax , with the absence of the influential
joel penny hardly making any differance to the Haven . Everyone
played their part but it is difficult to ignore another big game
from Leroy who seems to found his old form in recent weeks
Referee: Julian King
Attendance: 1269
Featherstone: Nathan Batty, Stephen Jones (Craig Moss, 64), Danny
Maun, Richard Newlove, Bryn Powell, Josh Weeden, Liam Finn, Jason
Southwell (Ian Tonks, 19), Carl Hughes, Nathan Sykes (Danny Evans,
32), Steve Dooler, Adam Hayes, Dean Ripley (Neil Lowe, 17)
Subs: Craig Moss, Danny Evans, Ian Tonks, Neil Lowe
Whitehaven: Gary Broadbent, Craig Calvert, David Seeds, Mick
Nanyn, Wesley Wilson, Leroy Joe, Steve Kirkbride, Neil Baines
(Aaron Summers, 22), Aaron Lester, David Fatialofa (Mark Cox,
22), Brett McDermott (Howard Hill, 25), Craig Chambers, Carl
Rudd (Gary Purdham, 49)
Subs: Howard Hill, Aaron Summers, Gary Purdham, Mark Cox
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