YARNBURY 15 – 10 SKIPTON

SKIPTON suffered a rare defeat on Saturday when they lost this top of the table clash and with it came a major blow to their promotion aspirations. Yarnbury now go top taking over from the Reds who had held the lead since December.

Had Skipton won it would have virtually guaranteed them promotion. Instead, it now looks likely that the Reds will have to wait until the end of the season to know the final pecking order, because Skipton only have three league games left whereas the chasing pack have five games left and could mathematically still catch second place Skipton.

Until Saturday, Skipton had held top spot by playing each game with 100% commitment plus a lot of style and flair. On Saturday the 100% committment was there but the flair was missing and their closest rivals took advantage of it.

The Reds started in fine form and within twenty minutes were 10-0 in the lead.

The usual format of a dominant pack backed up by fast moving backs was working well. From a fluent backs movement, centre James Burke had opened the scoring with a try. Darren Howson was in good kicking form and gained the conversion and then a penalty kick and the Reds were looking good.

At this early stage it looked as though Skipton would run out as easy winners but Yarnbury were an experienced team and stuck doggedly to the task of harrassing the Reds. If Skipton had stuck to the game plan and continued to move the ball about, then there would have been no problem but instead there was much mid-field play with the ball going nowhere.

Just before half time, Yarnbury centre Bramham had broken clear and scored a try which was unconverted. So half time arrived with Skipton still in the lead, but only at 10-5.

Despite the half time pep talk, the second half re-started with Skipton again held in mid-field and whilst the Red’s forwards were working tirelessly and outplaying the hosts, the potency of the backs was being stunted due to lack of ball and Skipton were missing the chance to pull clear.

Meanwhile Yarnbury stuck to their game plan of wearing down the Reds and it was only a matter of time before their centre Bramham again broke clear for a converted try and they were in the lead. Then a penalty took them up to 15-10.

Staring a rare defeat in the face galvanized Skipton who stormed back into contention and in a normal game they did enough to win. Unfortunately, Yarnbury have the best defensive record in the league.

In this last twenty minutes of play the Skipton forwards were at their best surging time and time again towards the line. The front row of Moa Meki, Gavin Petterd and James Riches worked themselves to near exhaustion but to no avail.

Then in the dying minutes, ever alert winger Hamish Munro looked as though he had clinched it for the Reds when he spotted a loose ball, chipped it forward, outpaced the defenders and headed for the line. Unfortunately, Yarnbury’s full- back was equally alert and ran diagonally across the field and managed to kick the ball over the “dead ball” line just as Munro dived to score.

There is no way of nullifying this disappointing result in a game Skipton so nearly won. When the league programme resumes in two weeks time, the Reds must now ensure that they have convincing wins in their final three games and hope this is sufficient to keep the predators behind them at bay so that they still get their well earned promotion.