Seven tries and seven different scorers as team effort sees Dewsbury Rams bounce back
Dewsbury Rams returned to winning ways in the Betfred Championship with a strong performance that brought victory in Cumbria when they defeated Workington Town.
In the build-up head coach Paul March had spoken of confidence in his side bouncing back in this fixture after defeats in their previous two matches had undone a highly encouraging three-game winning start to life back in the Championship.
And he was to be proved right as despite a late fightback by their hosts the Rams were able to run out 38-22 winners.
After a cautious start when Dewsbury lost Luke Nelmes to an early injury they slowly began to exert pressure, forcing a goal-line drop-out and going close through Tom Delaney.
There was no stopping Delaney, however, on 20 minutes as he produced a superb diving finish in the corner for the opening try. Jacob Hookem added an equally impressive conversion and the visitors were up an running.
Six minutes later Caelum Jordan was first to a loose ball to add a second try. This time there was no conversion and it remained 10-0 until half-time.
The Rams did survive a strong period of pressure to keep Workington out despite having to defend three repeat sets on their line.
The home team started the second half where they left off in the first with March’s men having to defend well again.
But when back on attack Dewsbury showed they could be clinical as Town failed to deal with a kick and Dan Coates took advantage to follow-up to score. With Hookem tagging on the extras their lead was out to 16 points.
Great defence followed again before a fourth try was scored, Brad Graham racing over for a try converted by Hookem.
The Rams were really hitting their stride now and within three minutes they were in again through man of the match Jack McShane.
Two more tries were quick to follow with Bailey O’Connor racing over after backing up a superb Hookem break and George Senior collecting a seventh try – all by different scorers.
Hookem was unable to convert the last of the tries, but successfully landed five goals to back up his fine display at half-back.
At this point Workington had not been able to reply with a single point, but with the game lost they posted 22 in the final eight minutes to show what might have been as far as they were concerned.
Jake Dickinson, Mason Lewthwaite, Callum Farrer and Alex Donaghy all crossed for tries with Jake Carter kicking three goals, but their efforts were too late to affect the destiny of the two points after Dewsbury had done more than enough to deservedly earn their fourth league victory of the season.