Rossendale United 2 Leigh RMI 6

By Jordan Reay
August 7 2003

RMI capped off a successful pre-season with a wonderful performance against old adversaries, Unibond League outfit Rossendale United. The goalscoring romp went some way to addressing concerns that RMI will once again struggle to score goals this season.

After a great pre-season, RMI came to Rossendale with a lot of confidence. The confidence in the squad is what brought them the win and hopefully it will carry on until next weekend's big Conference kick-off against Dagenham & Redbridge.

Ian McNiven celebrated his signing for Leigh with a goal after he cleverly lobbed Rossendale 'keeper to put RMI ahead. McNiven then turned provider as he slotted Marcus Hallows through who fired home to make it 2-0.

Rossendale didn't give up though and played some great football, trialist Doni Clarke then pulled a well deserved goal back for Rossendale and equalised not long after.

The Railwaymen pushed forward after the equaliser, and Marcus Hallows was unlucky not to get his second after he latched on to Wayne Maden's through ball. But it was Maden himself who restored RMI's lead, when he got on the end of a free kick and sent Leigh in at half-time 3-2 up.

After the break RMI upped the tempo a bit and piled the pressure on the Rossendale defence. Finally Leigh made the deserved break-through when Neil Durkin set-up McNiven for his second and RMI's fourth just after the hour.

Paul Sheppard scored RMI's fifth with a spectacular drive from the right. By this time Leigh were looking very comfortable indeed, much better than last season's standard on football. Finally, Warren Payton scored RMI's sixth goal to seal a great win for the Leythers and to please manager Mark Patterson very much.

Leigh RMI: Coburn, Lancaster, Brown (Durkin), Hill (Pendlebury), Shephard, Maden, Harrison (Cooke), Payton, Monk (Clegg), Hallows (Courtney), McNiven.