Northern Rail Round-up

It was a much more active round of Northern Rail action this past weekend.

Here are the results:

BARROW 34 Blackpool 8
Batley 30 Widnes 30
Featherstone 18 Sheffield 18
Gateshead 12 WORKINGTON 26
HALIFAX 24 Dewsbury 0
KEIGHLEY 17 Whitehaven 16
London Skolars 12 HUNSLET 60
SWINTON 30 Doncaster 20
YORK 13 Leigh 12

Last Tuesday Widnes played Gateshead.

WIDNES 50 Gateshead 6

Last night Oldham hosted Rochdale at Sedgley Park RUFC.

OLDHAM 22 Rochdale 14

All the results point to an interesting season with notable wins for York and Keighley in particular over one time Championship heavyweights Leigh and Whitehaven.

Individual scoring honours this weekend must go to Wayne McHugh of Hunslet Hawks. He scored 4 tries and kicked 8 goals for a 32 point haul. Interesting to note from the same Hunslet teamsheet that hooker Richard Chapman who made a name for himself in the lower divisions with Featherstone, is still having a big influence on the way his team plays.

Defensive honours must go to Halifax for their 24-0 shut out of Dewsbury although their boss Matt Calland told Keith McGhie of the Rugby Leaguer & League Express: "It was a good test for us - defensively we were ok but we had a lot of what I'd call brain explosions in attack."

Once again Blackpool named a raft of ex Leigh players as they took on Barrow. Fourteen of the seventeen on show had former Centurion connections while Barrow themselves had 2 former Centurions in Danny Halliwell and Rob Roberts.

As previously mentioned Widnes opened their account for 2010 with a 50-6 win over Gateshead. The Vikings scored 11 tries with former Featherstone, Sheffield and Castleford back James Ford grabbing 4 tries but wayward kicking from Scott Yates (1/5) and Shane Grady (2/6) pegged the score back.

Batley Bulldogs fell short of another famous win over the Vikings on Sunday. The Bulldogs beat Widnes 40-34 on their own ground last year but a late try from Anthony Thackeray, converted by Grady (a slight kicking improvement with 3/6), ensured a share of the spoils.

Another draw came at Featherstone where it was 18-18 with Sheffield. Liam Welham claimed a hat-trick for Rovers while Jon Steel also scored. Mitch Stringer, Alex Rowe and Craig Cook all responded for the Eagles with Johnny Woodcock striking 3/4 goals while Kyle Briggs was only able to add 1/4.