After back to back postponed fixtures, the Rams showed no signs of rust as they romped to a nice 69-0 victory over the Doncaster Mustangs.

The Rams stopped the first drive from the visitors, but it wasn’t much of a break for the defense as Rio Irvine took the ball 75 yards to the house on the home side’s first offensive possession of the game, Tyler Broad added the 2 point conversion.

Rio Irvine leaves everyone behind to score a long TD

Another forced punt saw the Rams offense led by Josh Green take to the field and after a big pass to Conor Moran, Luke Campbell ran the ball in for score number two, with Moran adding the 2PAT.

The offence was high octane and on the first play of their third drive, Nathaniel Wyse ran in another touchdown and two point conversion to make it three on the ground from as many different running backs.

It wasn’t long before even punts weren’t safe for the Mustangs as Broad returned a second quarter kick for a touchdown.

Conor Moran running down the sideline

Moran continued his dominant performance with, an amazing, yards after the catch play, making the most of a lovely floated pass before rumbling his way into the endzone. Wyse added the 2PAT to make it 38-0 at the half.

Broad was up to his usual tricks, after an incredible TD against the Humber Warhawks in our last home game, this time he weaved his way through oncoming defenders and showing immense pace to burst down the right hand touchline. Moran added the 2PAT.

Matthew Wilkinson makes a tackle

With the running backs feeling pretty content, Green started to feed his receivers and floated passes to Elliott Rock, Matthew Lawrance and Nathan Kemeny all ended up in the same result, touchdowns.

Add in another special teams play leading to a safety and a pressure PAT conversion after Kemeny’s score by Campbell and the Rams headed into a blockbuster week in which they face Sheffield Giants with a great confidence booster.

Head Coach, Jason Shaw said: “After the disappointment of having two cancellations in a row, it was just great to get back out on the field with the players. Being back at home in the stadium was awesome, especially getting to watch the Assassins U19’s team play before us. Full credit to Doncaster for getting the game on despite missing a few players, it would have been very easy for them to take the weekend off but they showed up and played hard all game. Christian’s defence gave us a great platform to build off throughout the game, it is easier for the offence to express themselves and play with freedom when we are confident the ball is coming back to us pretty sharpish. I suppose you could say that your first play of the day going for 75 yards and a score, off an inside run call, also gives a bit of confidence."

"We now look towards our big challenge this week against the Sheffield Giants, where we carry the underdog tag. We know we will be without half a dozen key starters, but I have full faith in the players we have available to put on a show in front of our home support once again. The minimum you will see from your Yorkshire Academy Rams this week is 100% effort, let’s see where that takes us during the course of Sunday afternoon.”

MVP Awards

  • Offensive: Conor Moran
  • Defensive: Matt Fox
  • Special Teams: Joey McEntee
  • Ram of the Day: Matthew Wilkinson

All images from Alex Daniel.