Cleckheaton got their first home league game of the season under their belt with a fantastic performance and well deserved win over Rochdale. The men from Lancashire are a good team and will win more games than they lose this year, but despite all their efforts, and there were plenty, they could not break through the Moorenders superb defence. Cleckheaton had a couple of changes from the team that beat Malton & Norton last week, with Ryan Piercy coming back into the forwards and Matt Piper returning to the back line. At the same time Lee Queeley and Martin Woodhead were unavailable, giving Patrick Horrigan the opportunity to make his debut on the wing.

Cleckheaton started well from the kick off, pressurising Rochdale from the outset. With a little over 5 minutes gone, the visitor’s stand-off Rob Neave, was adjudged to have cynically slowed down play and was sent to the sin bin. Ross Hayden slotted the resulting penalty to open Cleckheaton’s scoring. The home side continued to take the game to their opponents with some excellent runs from Ryan Piercy and Rob Afoa Peterson earning valuable yards up the middle of the park. Rochdale were forced to clear with a kick close to their line, giving Cleck a line out on the 22. The well rehearsed catch and drive, which was so prevalent last season, sprang into action again and Richard Piper went over for his first of the season. Hayden converted.

Rochdale replied with a penalty kick through Oli Coldman on 15 minutes to bring the score to 10-3 but Cleckheaton regained the advantage when Hayden kicked another penalty to restore the 10 point lead. Michael Piper’s promising start to the season continued as the stand off pinned Rochdale in their own half with some accurate kicking to the edges of the pitch. Good pressure from debutant Horrigan forced a hurried kick from Rochdale’s fullback and Cleckheaton once again secured a line-out on the Rochdale 22. Ben Thrower was on form with his throwing in all afternoon and picked out Ollie Akroyd who set up the maul, which Richard Piper masterfully directed to the line for his 2nd try. The conversion was narrowly missed. Rochdale had a clear opportunity to get a try back as the half time whistle approached but a poor final pass saw the ball drift into touch and Cleckheaton were reprieved and led 18-3 at the interval.

Cleckheaton continued their hard work at the start of 2nd half and kept Rochdale confined to their 22 for the first 10 minutes of the restart. Several waves of forward attack were held out by the visitors but then Michael Piper spotted on overlap on the left and threw a long pass over James Marshall for Ross Hayden to wrong foot the cover defence and score in the corner. The fullback went on to convert the try from the touchline.

Alex Dawson and Chris Piper were introduced for Grant Turton and Paul Turner bringing the number of Pipers on the field to five in total, four brothers and one cousin, even surpassing the recent historic feat of the Burgess Brothers in the NRL. No sooner had Alex Dawson been introduced than he was sin binned when he was unluckily adjudged to have committed Cleckheaton’s 3rd penalty in quick succession. From this point onwards the Moorenders played all but a few minutes of the remainder of the game with 14 men. Not long after Dawson was back on the field, Matt Piper was sin-binned for successive ‘off-sides’. With Cleckheaton a man down the game turned to an attacking onslaught from the visitors versus a mammoth defensive effort from Cleckheaton. Rob Afoa Peterson made way for Robin Bennett and the replacement back row made a notable scrabbling tackle, along with big hits from Andy Piper and Piercy. The referee awarded Rochdale several penalties but they spurned the option to kick for points and laid down their intention to score a try. Despite throwing all they had at Cleckheaton the defensive line did not break and to rub a little salt in the wounds, James Wilson intercepted a long pass in the dying seconds and raced fully 90m to claim Cleckheaton’s try scoring bonus point. With the last action of the game, Ross Hayden converted from the touchline to give a final score of 32-3.

This was an excellent team performance from Cleckheaton and has set a high benchmark for the season, if the side can play like that throughout the year it promises to be a good season indeed.