Cadishead Rhinos 12 - 20 Rochdale Cobras

Cobras continued their 100% start to the season and made it three wins from three against a huge Manchester side on Sunday. 

In their previous meeting, Rhinos had lost  to Cobras 18 months ago by 70 points and were determined not to allow the same again.

Playing simple one out rugby, the Rhinos props were making the Cobras work hard in defence and were trying to tire them out. This had the desired effect as Cobras were slow to get the line in all too often, and plays became slow while organisation started to suffer.

However, Rhinos were still struggling to get out of their own half while Cobras pressed often but forced the last pass too much.

Chadderton settled the nerves though as he took a kick off on his own ten metre line and ran across the defensive line, before stepping through a gap, and out sprinting the cover for a full length try of the highest quality. Coop added the extras and Cobras started to settle into their rhythm.

The Rhinos Loose Forward had other ideas though as poor discipline marched the home team all the way up the pitch and he powered on to a tap to crash over. The conversion was a success to level the score at 6-6.

Being dragged into a forwards battle was not what the Cobras wanted as they lacked the physical dominance and keeping the set plans going was going to be key under pressure.

From one of the many scrums, Battersby fed the ever improving McLoughlin who opened up and powered over from 40 metres out; again the kick was a success.

Next up was Dolan, he has also carried on improving over the last few months and, after putting in some impressive tackles, sold a beautiful show and go to touch down by the posts.

Half time came and Cobras could not pull away from the dogged defence of the home team while their pack still kept taking the ball up, seemingly not tiring.

As the second half began, a bout of scrums saw the locals on their own line, Battersby took a neat pass from the base of the scrum but a Rhinos player, who was clearly offside, stole the ball and took it over the try line.

The referee inexplicably awarded the try and the message 'play to the whistle' echoed around the support.

Clegg, McEvoy, Low, Haddley, Brierley, Platt and Coop defended well for Cobras whilst Booth, McLoughlin, Chadderton, Battersby, Dolan, and Mellors pushed and probed for openings.

Cain and Pawsey came into the action to ease tired limbs and did their bit. 

McEvoy in particular was having the game of his life and almost scored on several occasions. After his last drive, McLoughlin was on hand to score his second and seal the game.