Dewsbury Rams head coach Lee Greenwood was delighted with his side’s victory over the Rochdale Hornets last weekend, as the Rams won 66-10 on Sunday afternoon.
The win lifts the Rams back over Swinton in the league standings and now they will go to Canada to face the Toronto Wolfpack full of confidence.
On the victory Greenwood said: “It was a much needed win wasn’t it, I drove here today thinking just about a one point win. I did feel like if we could string some momentum together in this game we could do something just because of what Rochdale have done. They allow you to score tries basically, after Rochdale went ahead and scored early we then strung four or five sets together where we didn’t drop the ball, and we scored straight after their try. You just have to tire them out basically and then they will present you with a chance to score a try.
“There was a lot of good stuff in there and it’s a lot happier place after two wins in a row, the league table looks a bit rosier now than it did in the morning before the game.
“Both Liam and Paul need people running around them and running into holes and creating space for them. We have two outstanding halfbacks at this level and we haven’t had many games where they have managed to play together, I think that was the fourth game. I think we looked on the front foot, we had a lot of attacking sets and tries where we crashed over, but there was some promising signs today. Liam likes to guide the team around the field without having any flash touches, and you’ve seen today what the halfback pairing could do if they had played for longer together.
“They played something like three games together and then Paul Sykes has been out for ten games, we took him off with five minutes to go just as a precaution at the end and there was no indication of any problems with his knee. They are looking after themselves well these boys who have played for a long time, it isn’t easy otherwise everyone would do it, it takes a lot of self discipline to come back from a long injury when you have been in good form, it is a credit to him.
“Sam (Day) has shown plenty of promise all season, he was either playing out of a position last year or didn’t play a lot of games. He might have even played on the wing at times last year. He is a fit lad that has trained well and taken his opportunity and played well so far this season, he started well then went off the boil a bit but that is to be expected when you are playing your first full season at this level, and now he’s just coming back into some good form. He has also played two games in a row for the full 80 minutes at nine which is great, he’s got that little burrow in him, sometimes it comes off and sometimes it doesn’t but it does test defences out.
“When you looked at the fixture list, this and the Swinton games were massive, we tripped up badly at Swinton when we should have won, and that then made this a must win game for both us and them. They may struggle after this but it was a must win for us, and Widnes beat Barrow and Swinton lost to Toronto so it gives us that small gap in the table. It is looking rosier after today, there are other pivotal games left in this season that we will need to pick up points in, but if we can get everyone available then I’d like to think we can pick up some more points along the way.
“There haven’t been any games like this one, even when you look at the games we played against Thatto Heath and West Hull we had to work hard to get the wins. Today is probably been the only game where we could enjoy it and kick on, I just said at half time I didn’t want it to go into a scrappy game where both teams were poor.
“We didn’t get off to the best start in the first half and they scored without us even getting to touch the ball, but then we got going. Rochdale probably should have got one more try, but the game was dominated by us. We thought that they would be vulnerable in the middle near their line and they were and so we got a lot of joy scoring there.”
The Rams next face Toronto in Canada and then we have a home tie against the Leigh Centurions.
