Rams through to Challenge Cup Fifth Round after brilliant performance against Championship side Widnes Vikings.
After six straight wins in both League and Cup action, the Rams came up against their toughest test so far this season in seven-time Challenge Cup winners Widnes Vikings, who currently sit fourth in the Betfred Championship.
In the early stages of the game, it was very much a case of both sides cancelling each other out with both defences on top. That was until the eighteenth minute when Widnes made the breakthough, Matty Fozard took the ball from the base of a scrum close to the Rams line and cut through the defence to score.
It took the Rams just under ten minutes to bring the game back level when Lewis Carr gleefully ran in for his third try of the season after a lovely floating pass by Paul Sykes, who converted successfully from the touchline. However, the Vikings were able to regain a two-point lead just after, Jack Owens kicking a penalty goal for the visitors after the Rams were judged to be offside at a play of the ball.
The Rams were to go in at the break ahead though, Reiss Butterworth scooted from dummy half and managed to break a couple of tackles to score underneath the sticks.
Just after the break the visitors brought the game level, a well worked overlap sent in Adam Lawton to score. Once again however, the Rams didn’t take this lying down and after the restart was fumbled by the Vikings, the Rams took advantage when Ollie Greensmith scored his fifth try of the season from a set play close to the Vikings line.
Then came perhaps the try of the afternoon which extended the Rams lead to twelve points. After a Vikings kick went dead in-goal, home debutant Luke Littlewood made a huge gain from the tap restart which provided the platform for Jimmy Beckett to steam through a gap in the Vikings defence and play the ball out of the back of his hand to Reiss Butterworth for his second try of the afternoon.
With just ten minutes remaining the Vikings went down to twelve men after Joe Lyons was sent to the sin bin for a tackle off the ball. From the resulting penalty, Paul Sykes successfully kicked the conversion to extend the lead to fourteen with less than ten minutes remaining.
The Rams weren’t finished just yet though, with only a couple of minutes left in the game Ronan Dixon bulldozed his way through the Vikings defence, rounding off a famous victory for the Rams and sealing a place in the Fifth Round of the Challenge Cup where the London Broncos await at the Cherry Red Records Stadium.
After the game Rams Head Coach Liam Finn said, “I’m really happy with the performance today, we wanted to use the game to test ourselves at a Championship tempo and physicality and that’s what we’ve spoken about all week.
We knew that if we played as well as we know we can then we’d have a chance of winning the game, it took us a little bit of time at first and we were pinned on our try line but we managed to hang in there and get a couple of points which gave us the confidence and belief we need to go and win.”
Our next game sees us back in Betfred League One action at FLAIR Stadium against Hunslet RLFC on Friday 7th April (15:00).
Dewsbury Rams (32): Restall, Carr, O’Connor, Greensmith, Whiteley, Sykes, Turner, Beckett, Butterworth, R.Dixon, Garside, Graham, Davies.
Interchanges: Day, Morris, Walker, Littlewood, Coventry (18th)
Tries: Carr (27’), Butterworth (38’, 60), Greensmith (47’), R.Dixon (75’)
Conversions: Sykes (5/5)
Penalty Goal: Sykes (71’)
Widnes Vikings (12): Fleming, Ince, Wilde, Edge, Dixon, Owens, Lyons, Field, Fozard, Walker, Lawton, Grady, Bent.
Interchanges: Amor, Farnworth, Brookes, Brown, Hatton (18th)
Tries: Fozard (18’), Lawton (44’)
Conversions: Owens (1/2)
Penalty Goal: Owens (33’)
Yellow Card: Lyons (70’)
