The home side got off to a cracking start with the ball being moved out wide to Jack who powered over from 40m. Town continued the great start, retaining possession and winning the early exchanges at the ruck and increased the lead again through Jack who scored on the opposite flank. The lads were looking comfortable, but the game wasn’t decided yet as Yarnbury looked to get back into the game. They upped their tempo and started to win the up front battles with great carries and rucking. Releasing the back line the ball went out to their quick tall winger who chipped ahead and got to the ball to touch it down just in front of the covering defence - a cracking try. Boosted by the score, the visitors were looking the better side and winning the territory battle but just couldn’t break the Moortown defence. Halftime came with Town leading by the single try.

During the half time break, the coaches emphasised that we needed to keep it simple as we were making hard work of moving the ball. The next score was important and again Town scored straight from the off. Sam H took a kicked on his touchline and made the right decision to come inside with a number of opponents on his back. Carrying strongly, he made good yards, presented the ball perfectly setting up a great ruck. The ball was quickly carried forward to a ruck central on the pitch. Lloyd took the ball, looked up and seeing the oppo winger up flat, kicked a lovely ball that floated into the hands of Cai rushing forward at speed to go over the whitewash. A great example of heads up rugby and good decision making.

Yarnbury came back once more and scored again through their fast 11, who had a cracker of a game, outpacing the defence to go over in the corner, to make it a one try lead for Town. However, the home side came right back through an absolutely storming run by Josh, who carried the ball through a crowd battering away at the defenders who just couldn’t stop him. He kept going and going until he got over the line to score an amazing try. It was brilliant and from a lad playing his first game as prop. Josh answered the call on Wednesday at training, saying that he would give it a go - and what a go he gave - a magnificent display all morning.

Two tries up with less than five minutes to go, we thought we had so breathing space but FairPlay to the Yarnbury lads they cam at us and battered the Moortown line but great defence kept them out and it looked like the line would be cleared. Great ripping had got the ball back but it was spilled for Yarnbury to pick up and get over the line to bring it back to 4-3.

Those last two minutes seemed to last forever, but we needn’t have worried because the final try of the game came for Town - a great drive up the left flank, good inter passing between the forwards and Jack popping up to get over for his hattrick. The game ended and the home side celebrated a hard fought win over a tough opponent.

Moortown 5 v 3 Yarnbury
Scorers Jack x 3, Cai x 1 and Josh x 1

It was always going to be a tough game, and Yarnbury showed how strong a team they are and they never stopped looking for the score. They’ve a strong set of forwards and have a good set of runners behind and move the ball well - I’m sure they’ll be looking forward to the return match at theirs.

All in all, it was a decent performance from the Moortown boys, we made hard work of it though, trying too much one man rugby and not passing as we usually can. However, it was always going to be a hard match and they did well to grind out the win.

Our next game is on 16th December at Ilkley in the next round of the Yorkshire Cup so we’ll need to improve on the performance and discipline on the park.

Well done lads.

Ymlaen y Dref!