A spirited Hegians performance was not enough to advance them to the Final of the Aire Wharfe Cup.

Hegians were under pressure from the off with some inviting kicks from the WPL no 10 not being returned, resulting in the away team being pinned into the corners and struggling to clear their lines due to weather and the incline.

Some slick moves by the back line released Elliot Jackson on a couple of occasions, who was bundled into touch before his support could reach him to convert the possession into points. With the rain and the high ball hammering down on Hegians, they managed to maintain parity in the score line until just before halftime. WPL bundled over the line after an onslaught from their forwards and a momentary lapse of the robust defence offered by the Hegians lines.

With the halftime score at 7-0, the Roundhegians were encouraged by their efforts in the first half and managed to get more passes completed but just lacked the cutting edge or the line break required to convert possession to points. Both sides continued to be quick “over” the ball which resulted in a number of turnovers and more importantly, two penalties for Heagins which Alex Jones duly slotted over oh and fell over.

WPL managed another penalty to bring the scoreline to 10-6 so with 10 minutes to go Hegians were in real contention and continued to hammer the line, a missed penalty from Alex Jones could have put Hegians to within a point. A couple of miss-thrown lineouts (due to the conditions) could have resulted in the winning try from the well practiced Hegians catch and drive but and number of “pick and go’s” ended with the final whistle being blown after Andy Childs was deemed to have been held up over the line.

Whilst low scoring, both sides showed their appreciation of a hard and well fought game played on a night not conducive to fast flowing rugby, good luck to West Park Leeds in the final and good luck to Hegians who aim to cap their League winning season with a win against Burley at the Memorial Ground on Saturday 21st April at 3:00pm.

DONT FORGET THE DARTS SOCIAL ON SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE CLUB, BRING YOUR DARTS, A SHIRT, £10 AND IF BEFORE 5:00pm TONIGHT GET YOUR “WALK ON MUSIC” TO MATT LOUGHNEY