LOCAL
BAILDON
SECONDS 20 – 22 SKIPTON SECONDS
After last week’s mismatch against Otley 2nd XV in
which the team gave a creditable performance although being soundly beaten,
this week they went to Baildon in the Yorkshire 3 Merit league.
Baildon adopted their usual policy of playing uphill in the
first half and trying to soak up the sting of the opposition. However, the
Baildon half backs were shaky and targeted from the off by the Skipton back
row, Ben Hall and Martin Murray harassing the life out of them. With the
Skipton lineout also superior, the Reds took control but struggled to break the
Baildon defence. However, after 20 minutes Chris Wilkinson, more involved in
the game playing at centre rather than his usual full back position, broke a
Baildon tackle and sped away to score under the posts. The Skipton's only
successful kick of the day added by Ash Greaves.
Skipton continued to pile on the pressure and eventually
John Firth burst forward to score Skipton's 2nd try. At this stage, it appeared
to be a matter of how many points Skipton were going to score but the men from
Jenny Lane don't know the meaning of giving up and employed various tactics to
get themselves back in the game one of which was their no. 7 giving John First
a crack on the nose for which he duly had 10 minutes in the sin bin. Even so,
when back to their full compliment just before half time, Baildon got back into
the game with a break away try and conversion followed by a successful penalty
giving a half time score of 10-12 to Skipton.
The second half was more nip and tuck with Baildon using
their weight advantage and knowledge of their pitch to try and push Skipton
back. They were brought up short when winger Ben Davies evaded tacklers and put
Skipton further in front. Again it looked like the Reds had taken control of
the game only to concede another try. As the game drew to a close, Martin
Murray had to move from his back row berth into the centre following an injury
to Matthew Cox and broke the Baildon defence bouncing off 3 tacklers to put
Skipton seemingly out of reach only for Baildon yet again to come back and
score in the last minute.
The score did not reflect the difference in quality
between the 2 sides particularly in the first half the running and interlinking
play, mainly from the Colts contingent and captain Richard Hill was a joy to
behold along with the bullocking charges of Firth and Ben
Oldfield. Men of the match were impossible to separate and goes to the