Lancashire Lynx 13 Rochdale Hornets 34

LANCASHIRE Lynx's hopes of moving away from the lower reaches of the Northern Ford Premiership took another blow when they went down to a disappointing defeat against fellow strugglers Rochdale Hornets.

Once again Lynx were their own worst enemies with poor ball control and indiscipline contributing to their downfall.

After the game coach Steve Hampson was still struggling to come to terms with the manner of defeat. He said: "Overall it was a dreadful performance, we have gone backwards in the last two games to the performances when we lost 12 on the run.

"It appears that some players are giving 100 per cent while others are just prepared to turn up and go through the motions of playing rugby league.

"Once again our problem was the inability to complete sets of six tackles and keep hold of the ball, after going behind we just went to pieces. No disrespect to Rochdale, they are not world beaters and were there for the taking."

Both teams started brightly, creating chances which were not taken. Lynx struck first after a bout of sustained pressure which brought a drop goal from Neil Flanagan.

This lead was soon surrendered as tries from Peter Fitzgerald and Lee Hudson both converted by Fitzgerald gave Rochdale a 12 point advantage.

This gave the visitors the confidence to take control of the game but despite many close calls their only other points of the half came from a Peter Fitzgerald penalty. On the stroke of half time, Lynx got themselves back in the game when Darren Abram managed to jink his way to the try line, Alexander adding the conversion which left Rochdale with a 14-7 half time advantage. Lynx's hopes of staging a comeback were soon halted when another error gave the advantage to Rochdale and Matt Knowles managed to reach out and touch down.

This was followed soon afterwards with another try for Peter Fitzgerald after good play by Sean Cooper, Fitzgerald converting them both to give them a commanding advantage.

Lynx were now trying to play catch up rugby but their inability to keep hold of the ball cost them any chance of reducing the arrears.

Rochdale were further ahead on the hour with a disputed try from Willie Swann before Steve Gee reduced the arrears five minutes later with a converted try. Two minutes later some more dreadful defending allowed Willie Swann to go over from the base of the scrum to complete the scoring.

Lynx created very little in the closing minutes as their game totally went to pieces.

This Friday championship chasing Featherstone Rovers visit Victory Park and hopefully they will put up a much more committed performance to save another embarrassing scoreline.

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