Dewsbury Rams were narrowly defeated by Toronto Wolfpack in what was a dogged and spirited display.
The Rams lead for most of the game and it wasn’t until the last fifteen minutes that Toronto’s fitness started to come to the fore.
It was a wet and windy day with the conditions not suiting the Wolfpack it was Dewsbury who did all the running. The game started off well for the Rams with Paul Sykes kicking over a successful penalty on the 8th minute. Toronto stunned by the how much pressure they were being put under tried to fight back however some unbelievable defence by the home side made sure the Wolfpack weren’t going to overrun this Dewsbury side.
The Rams extended their lead just six minutes later when Sykes again kicked over a penalty to now put the score at 4-0 to the Rams.
It got even better for Dewsbury on the 21st minute when Michael Knowles leaped onto a Paul Sykes low kick to score a fantastic try for the Rams. Sykes converted the kick for the extra two points and Dewsbury were now 10-0 up.
The home side could have again extended their lead further on the 25th minute, however Sykes missed his first kick of the season when trying to score another penalty.
The Canadian side up to this point had been second best, however they did get their first try of the afternoon on the 34th minute. A move from left to right ended in Adam Higson going through to score a simple try. The conversion was missed by Gareth O’Brien and that put the scores at 10-4 to the Rams.
Dewsbury started the second half much like they did the first putting the Wolfpack under pressure and again Sykes scored an early penalty on the 42nd minute, taking the score to 12-4 to the Rams.
Sykes scored another penalty on the 55th minute taking the score to 14-4 to Toronto, four minutes later Sykes scored another one and then five minutes after that he ended the Rams scoring with a drop goal meaning the score now stood at 17-4.
Due to some mistakes from the Rams this is when Toronto started their comeback, Nick Rawsthorne got Toronto’s try when he dived onto a kick through. O’Brien dispatched the conversion successfully and that made the score 17-10 to Dewsbury.
Toronto scored two more quick tries in succession, the first coming on the 67th minute and the second coming on the 71st minute. Blake Wallace got the first and O’Brien scored the second try which was the winning one for Toronto. He kicked both conversion attempts to add the extra points.
In the last five minutes two sin-binning sanctions were given with Darcy Lussick and Daniel Igbinedion sent to the bench on a yellow card. Chris Annakin was shown a red card for an alleged spitting incident.
The Rams next week travel to Halifax to see if they can win their second fixture of the 2019 campaign.
Credit- Photo by freelance photographer Peter Smith
