Preston Grasshoppers 32, Rossendale 20: Depleted Hoppers produce a dramatic finish to earn victory

Trailing 18-20 at the three-quarter point, Hoppers lost Hugo Castle and Jacob Browne to red cards following a mass brawl, when they were already a man down due to Jonny Wild’s sin binning five minutes earlier.

But, as head coach Dan Orwin said, the sendings off “galvanised them and they dug deep” for an epic victory.

He felt his side were ill-served by Castle’s red card, as he retaliated to a punch that started the set-to, with no visiting player punished, before Browne followed for “abusing an official” in his protests.

Nevertheless, Hoppers responded to adversity in dramatic fashion, with winger Owain Williams scoring twice in seven minutes, both converted by man-of-the-match Sam Freeman, for a result that left Rossendale wondering how on earth they had let it slip.

Hoppers had started brightly enough, with runs by Freeman and Browne establishing the position from which home pressure caused a mistake which led to Sammy Russell’s converted try.

Rossendale worked their way back into the game with two penalties by Dan Holland and, after Freeman had landed one of his own, a converted try by Jack Wilkinson from a line-out drive.

Hoppers thought they had got over the line but couldn’t ground the ball satisfactorily, so it was left to Freeman to level the scores at halftime with another penalty.

In what Orwin described as a”scrappy” second half, the visitors regained the lead with a further line-out try, by Macui Duaibe, converted by Holland.

But, despite Wild being in the bin, yet another line-out drive saw the inevitable home try by Harry Holden, before the double red cards seemed to have set Hoppers up for a damaging defeat.

But, reflecting on some previous results, Orwin said: “We deserve to get on the right side of these tight games.”

And so it proved, with a resilient victory which lifted them back to seventh in National League Two North.

Despite his delight, the coach admitted: “There’s lots to work on. We lost a lot of the kicking battles, and we have to be smarter.

“But our scrum was good for the most part and our line-out was better.”