Kelly praises team's effort after rampant Dewsbury are too hot for Rochdale

Dewsbury Rams coach Neil Kelly was full of praise for his side's superb all-round display as they picked up a second win from their opening three Betfred Championship matches.
Coach Neil Kelly was delighted with Dewsbury's display against Rochdale on Monday.Coach Neil Kelly was delighted with Dewsbury's display against Rochdale on Monday.
Coach Neil Kelly was delighted with Dewsbury's display against Rochdale on Monday.

The Rams comfortably negotiated Monday’s tricky trip to Rochdale with six try first half blitz and Kelly was delighted with the way his side acquitted themselves as they bounced back from the previous week’s 12-0 defeat by London Broncos in perfect fashion.

Speaking after Monday’s 38-6 victory at the Crown Oil Arena, Kelly said: “I thought we looked superb going forward in the first half and, by virtue of some generous refereeing decisions, we defended superbly in the second half, so we showed both sides of our game during the 80 minutes and I would say its the most complete performance we have put in.

“The challenge now is to go on and do it in the next game.”

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Despite the majority of the Rams squad spending Monday at work, they made an excellent start and had the game wrapped up by half-time when they led 32-0.

Kelly added: “We put it to a vote about playing Rochdale on a Monday night and they all, to a man, put their hands up and said yes we do and to be fair to the players, they never moaned about it and just got on with the job.

“We had a really good week training and we took the London defeat the right way and knew if we had done some things different we could have had a different result in that game.

“We practised in training when we are on attack and it reaped its benefits.”

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Dewsbury had a number of stand out performers with Michael Knowles stepping into the scrum half role in place of the injured Gareth Moore, while there was a first start of the season for veteran second row man Rob Spicer.

Kelly said: “I wanted him to play 80 minutes but he blew up after 75. For somebody who hasn’t played for a while and is the wrong side of 30 he put a great effort in and defended manfully and added something in attack for us.

“I told the forwards, I expected them to get over the top of Rochdale and they did exactly what I expected.”

Dewsbury scored some sparkling tries, with Dale Morton a defeat the right way and knew if we had done some things different we could have had a different result in that game.

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“We practised in training when we are on attack and it reaped its benefits.”

Dewsbury had a number of stand out performers with Michael Knowles stepping into the scrum half role in place of the injured Gareth Moore, while there was a first start of the season for veteran second row man Rob Spicer.

Kelly said: “I wanted him to play 80 minutes but he blew up after 75. For somebody who hasn’t played for a while and is the wrong side of 30 he put a great effort in and defended manfully and added something in attack for us.

“I told the forwards, I expected them to get over the top of Rochdale and they did exactly what I expected.”

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Dewsbury scored some sparkling tries, with Dale Morton acrobatically leaping to gather a Paul Sykes kick to grab the first and James Glover scooping up a loose ball to show a great turn of pace to race 40 metres for the second.

Pick of the Rams seven tries, though, was a spectacular 90 metre effort from new winger Rob Worrincy.

Kelly enjoyed the long range effort on the stroke of half-time, and added: “It’s nice to see a player who can go 80 or 90 metres and score a great try.

“Probably the result was no longer in doubt at that point but its a great sight to see him go 80 or 90 metres and running round someone and outpacing them.”

Dewsbury will target a third win in four games when they entertain Swinton on Sunday.