Fylde is delighted to welcome Lancashire friends and rivals Rossendale RUFC to the Woodlands on Saturday in the first of two pre-season run-outs ahead of the start of the National League 2 (North) season on 7th September (ko 15.00). This will be an exciting hors d’oeuvre to the 2024-25 campaign. Normal hospitality provision will be in place and the Club hopes for a healthy crowd for the fixture.
Rossendale RUFC (‘the Stags’) is one of the leading clubs in Regional One North West, one of six parallel regional divisions at level 5 in the RFU league hierarchy. They have been competing towards the top of the division for several seasons and have gone close to earning promotion on a few occasions including last season when they were shaded out of it at the very end of the campaign by eventual champions Macclesfield. They are very ambitious and this has driven an interesting player recruitment approach which has seen some high quality attracted to their Marl Pitts base near Rawtenstall.
Their current Head Coach is the very experienced Namibian-born, Scottish international wing or centre Byron McGuigan who has had periods with Glasgow Warriors, Exeter Chiefs and Sale Sharks before switching to a player/coaching role at the Stags. He recruited dual code England international centre/wing Danny Solomona last season and this strengthened a very dangerous attack already boasting talent such as former Fylde & ‘Hoppers fly-half Lewis Allen and Tom Bedlow.
Their forwards player coach is another former Fylde player, no 8 Matt Lamprey and he leads a powerful pack which includes Ryan Carlson and John Tuia.
With this kind of quality, surely sooner rather than later, they will come out on top and move up to the National Leagues.
A number of Fylde’s new recruits are likely to be on view on Saturday. This should be very keen test of the strength of the two squads.