Rams battle until the end but lose out against Bradford Bulls in first fixture of 2023.
Bradford Bulls were our first opponents of 2023 as we played our first pre-season fixture at FLAIR Stadium for the Jeff Grayshon Trophy. The game got off to a slow start in cold wintery conditions but the Bulls managed to force back-to-back drop-outs and their pressure told when Brad Foster went over from close range after eleven minutes, which was converted by Miles Lawford.
The Bulls then doubled their advantage when Keiran Gill pounced on a grubber kick to score the second try of the afternoon. The Rams got back into the game four minutes later when Louis Collinson scored his first Rams try after barging over from short range, which Calum Turner converted.
It was cagey in the next ten minutes or so as the Rams looked for the score to get level, but the game was to change just before half time when Rams Captain, Reiss Butterworth was sent to the sinbin for ten minutes for a high shot. Down to twelve, Jack Walker and Miles Lawford added two quickfire tries for the Bulls, giving the away side an eighteen-point lead at the break.
The Bulls added another two tries early in the second half through Joe Arundel and Jordan Lilley, but the Rams continued to battle well and applied some pressure late on with Sam Day just about managing to get the ball down in the seventy fourth minute. Shortly after the Rams scored again, Day made a fantastic break through the middle and fed the charging Jimmy Beckett to score.
After the game Rams Head Coach Liam Finn said, “There’s plenty for us to fix up on, it was a valuable game for us. There are bits and pieces there that we really need to tidy up on for a months’ time, the tries that we conceded before half time were really poor.
I thought in patches we defended well, especially on our own try line, as we spent that much time there. It’s a culmination of things that are causing us to spend more time defending our try line though and these are all things that we’ll be working on.”
Our next pre-season game sees us face Huddersfield Giants at the John Smith’s Stadium on Sunday 12th February (15:00).
Dewsbury Rams (16): Restall, Carr, Jordan, D.Dixon, Whiteley, Collins, Turner, Morris, Butterworth, R.Dixon, Wilkinson, Graham, Ferguson.
Interchanges: Day, Beckett, Collinson, Coventry, Summers, Frewin, Littlewood, O’Connor.
Tries: Collinson (26’), Day (74’), Beckett (77’)
Conversions: Turner (1/1), Collins (1/1)
Bradford Bulls (34): Walker, Blackmore, Myers, Gill, Foggin-Johnson, Holmes, Lawford, Rogers, Lilley, Foster, England, Wallace, Butler.
Interchanges: Arundel, Green, Scully, Hoyle, Gray, Flanagan JR, Fisher, Clarke, Camden, Barraclough, Arnold, Adams.
Tries: Foster (11’), Gill (22’), Walker (37’), Lawford (39’), Arundel (49’), Lilley (54’)
Conversions: Lawford (5/6)
