FEATHERSTONE Rovers shrugged off their Wembley hangover with a narrow win over a spirited bottom-of-the-table Hunslet side which made Paul Cooke’s narrowly beaten 1895 Cup finalists fight every inch of the way for two precious Betfred Championship points. (Report by Mike Tremlett).
Back at their Post Office Road home eight days after their golden-point 5-4 defeat by York Knights, Featherstone took on Hunslet back on league duty aiming to start climbing the table towards the play-off places.
They got the valuable league points but they struggled for the fluency in attack to put Hunslet away despite a promising startwhich saw them take an early 12-0 lead. Every time they looked like opening up some daylight defensive mistakes handed Hunslet a way back into the game.
Head coach Cooke recalled James Glover at centre and King Vuniyayawa came into the front row with Josh Hardcastle and Gadwin Springer dropping to the bench.
Taking charge in the middle was Tara Jones, the first female referee appointed by the RFL to officiate at a Championship fixture. She had a passable game, missing little and impressing her authority on proceedings.
Rovers started brightly, hemming Hunslet into their own 22 and they notched the first try of the contest in the sixth minute when they moved the ball right with Hampshire and Gale putting Olpherts over in the corner.
Reynolds’ conversion made it 6-0 with most of the crowd still setting into their seats, but the home side blew a second try-scoring chance in the 11th minute, when Hampshire’s floatedpass for Olpherts on the overlap wide went astray.
Bu Olpherts was over again a minute later down the right thanks to crisp handling from the Rovers backline with Reynolds again landing the conversion.
Rovers put themselves under pressure in the 18th minute whenthey were pinged for offside close to their line but a solid defensive set got them out of trouble, holding Hunslet at arms’ length to snuff out the threat.
Encouraged by the near thing, Hunslet conjured up an opening for Eded to scoot over under the posts with Jowett adding the conversion to cut Rovers’ lead to 12-6 after 24 minutes.
And the spirited visitors were back on terms with 14 minutes of the first half to go when full-back Jowett powered over from close in and added the conversion to give Hunslet a massive lift
Hunslet were fired up to make a fight of it and they went in at half-time on level terms after a fightback which belied their bottom-of-the-table status, only missing out on snatching a narrow lead when Jowett’s penalty shot from the halfway line drifted just wide.
After losing Aekins to a head injury early in the first half, Rovers suffered another setback two minutes into the second half when Turner left the contest with what looked like a shoulder problem. Hardcastle replaced him.
Rovers responded positively and went back in front when Glover scythed through the Hunslet defence from 20 metres out, beating three defenders on the way over for a stunning try which the inch-perfect Reynolds converted.
Hunslet were denied an immediate response when Gale cut down Westerman five metres short of the Rovers’ line as the visitors simply refused to lie down but Reynolds stretched Rovers into an eight-point lead in the 54th minute with a 25-metre penalty.
Within a minute Hunslet trimmed Rovers’ lead back to 20-18 with a try in the left corner from Eded and Jowitt’sconversion.
Rovers tried to up the pace again, cranking up the pressure on the Hunslet defence by working hard to pin the visitors back in their own half and the graft paid off when Reynolds put Beckett through a cleverly created gap 20 metres out for Rovers’ fourth try of the contest and added the conversion to give the home side a 26-18 lead.
Yet again, Hunslet hit back with a converted try from Jowitt in the 74th minute as Rovers’ defensive frailties were exposed again as their hard-won lead was again shaved to just two points with time running out and the match still in the balance.
FEATHERSTONE ROVERS: Aekins, Olpherts, Gale, Glover, Wynne, Reynolds, Hampshire, Vuniyayaywa, Jubb, Beckett, Day, Webb, Addy.
Interchanges: Turner, Hardcastle, Wilde, Springer.
HUNSLET: Jowitt, Welham, Westerman, Eden, Hanneghan, Gaskell, Foster, Corbett, Clavering, Wood, Kirby, Rugless
Interchanges: Berry, Hallas, Larroyer, Bailey
REFEREE: Tara Jones