SKIPTON 11 – ROUNDHEGIANS 16
This opening league game was a close encounter with the result in doubt until the final whistle.
The score was restricted to one try each but with visiting kicker Chris Pratt in top form and Skipton’s kicker Alex Naylor unable to emulate his 100 % record of last week, the visitors just won the game and took the valuable points.
The game was delayed by the the late arrival of the referee from Rotherham and this seemed to unsettle the waiting Skipton team and seemed to agitate the referee who continually penalized the Reds for minor infringements in the first half.
This enabled the mature calm Roundhegians side to take advantage of the situation and their heavyweight pack was dominant in the early stages.
Nevertheless, Skipton’s defence was superb and it is to their credit that the only breach was a push- over try by Roundhegians prop Sillers. However the continual offering of penalty opportunities to the visitors by the referee allowed the visitors to rack up a score of 13 by half time. Skipton’s only first half score was 3 points from an Alex Naylor penalty kick on the rare occasion the Red’s were given a favourable decision.
The second half saw a transformation. Roundhegians were tiring and Skipton were fighting back and 90% of the play was threatening their line. Indeed, an irritating feature of the second half was the tired visitors disrupting the Red’s pressure by frequent stoppages for minor injuries which in reality were no more than rest breaks.
Another Alex Naylor penalty kick brought the score up to 6 – 13.
The Red pack was now dominant particularly after Phil Crossman was brought on to bring extra strength into the front line. Pack leader Matthew Boatwright drove his men on and in the line outs Malcolm Willsher excelled with his ball catching. In the backs, George Smithson was again ‘man of the match’ excelling in every aspect of his game and Skipton were looking for a win.
Then, with only seconds remaining the breakthrough came and Kiwi No 8 Gavin Petterd saw a gap and powered over for a try to make the score 11 – 13. The conversion would have at least made a draw for Skipton but Naylor’s kick went wide and the prospect of a hard earned league point has gone.
Surprisingly the referee re-started the game, presumably adding on ‘injury time’ and this allowed Roundhegians to get another penalty attempt over the posts, completely against the run of play, to flatter them with a winning final score of 11 – 16.
Skipton 2nds started their season well with a
notable 39 – 12 win over