Team: Sutcliffe,Thirkell,Morgan.M,Verity,Morgan.R,Riley,Haigh,Dunne,Boshell,Walters,Ryan.S.
Subs:Littlefair,Etienne,Carol,Downing,Flowers

On a night where both teams were looking to bounce back from opening day defeats things were pretty even in the opening 15 minutes with Rossendale hitting the bar and Rail having one cleared off the line by a very brave defender who when clearing his lines collided heavily with the goalpost. After treatment he was ok to continue. It was shortly after that incident that Rail took the lead. After good work by Nick Boshell on the left he crossed the ball to the far post for Ryan Haigh to side foot the ball into the far corner of the net on 22 minutes. Shortly after that Dean Walters found space out on the left but his shot narrowly missed the right hand post. Rails lead only lasted for only 5 minutes as Eastwood found himself unmarked on the edge of the penalty area and converted easily to make the score 1-1. It didn’t take Rail long to regain the lead. On 35 minutes Dean Walters worked his way through the Rossendale defence and lifted the ball over the advancing keeper and into the back of the net for his first goal for the Red & Greens. There was just one scare for Rail towards the end of the first half when Liam Sutcliffe slightly fumbled a cross but regained the ball with no Rossendale player around. Rossendale 1 Rail 2
No substitutions were made by either side during the first half interval. Again play was pretty even and it wasn’t until the 55th minute any real action took place when a Rossendale player came forward and hit a swerving 25 shot that beat Liam all ends up but came crashing of the crossbar and out of play. That started to liven things up a little bit after that as Dean Walters came forward and was narrowly wide of the mark which had the keeper well beaten. Rail made 2 substitutions with Guiseppe Downing coming on for Nick Boshell and Joel Etienne coming on for Damian Dunne. Although it hadn’t been a physical game up until the substitutions the referee booked 2 Rossendale players in quick succession. The second booking however was a little clumsy and resulted in Danny Thirkell being carried off on a stretcher with a bad leg injury after a lengthy delay. Danny was replaced by Jamie Carol which resulted in Ryan Haigh dropping back to full-back and Jamie Carol playing on the right hand side of midfield. After the restart Rail had claims for a penalty when Joel Etienne was brought down but the referee decided that it was just outside the area.Rossendale pressed forward in search of an equaliser but just as Rail looked as though they had the 3 points they pushed forward once again late into injury time and with the Rail defence backing off a ball was played out to the left hand side of the area and Eastwood shot past Liam for his and Rossendales second goal. Seconds later the final whistle went. Final score: Rossendale 2 Rail 2
Disappointed to say the least. It was another game where we should have got more out of but we conceded (again) late into the game. I thought with time running down we should have retained possession better and got more men behind the ball. It was them chasing the game - not us. A better overall 90 minutes than last Saturday with good performances from most of the team. Just a shame about Danny Thirkell - heres hoping for a quick recovery