Saturday 22 September 2007

Barnsley 2nd XV 38 – 5 Skipton 2nd XV

With a weakened side, Skipton travelled to Barnsley and the game started off quite even.  Barnsley took an early lead but Skipton kept in the game with resolute forward play not least from Andy Whitley and Pete Collins who moved up from the 3rd XV and the mercurial Sean Kennedy coming back from injury at fly half.  Towards the end of the first half, unfortunately, Sean Kennedy suffered a further ankle injury. His loss to Skipton was immense, although make shift half back pairing of John Hughes and John Dillon put in sterling effort.

As the second half progressed, Barnsley tired and lost their discipline and would more than likely have lost players to the sin bin had a stronger referee been in control of the match. Even so, Skipton's young back five forwards started to get on top of the older Barnsley side and were duly rewarded with a late try from Paddy Murray.