Keighley tame league leaders

Keighley 7 Old Brodleians 7
by Sam Griffin
A exciting game of rugby in awful weather conditions. A depleted Keighley team showed immense character to gain a draw against league leaders Old Brodleians. From the off Brods were out of the blocks quickly, fully expecting the home team to succumb to an early onslaught. Instead, Keighley’s defence and the weather conditions soon put paid to that idea. A flurry of early handling errors from both teams led to a series of scrums. The Keighley front row of Spencer, Heys and Gibson caused the visitors scrum a lot of damage, forced to play off the back foot, Brods looked vulnerable. After the early exchanges there was a period of aerial ping pong, both teams attempting to gain field position. Keighley using the conditions to full advantage managed to gain the upper hand. With the scrums going well and Tom Willson’s stalwart work in the lineout Keighley began to believe in themselves. Forceful runs down the middle from dominant centre Sean Kelly, backed up by close support work from the forwards kept Brods pinned in their twenty two metre area. Some real graft from the forwards with wing forward Lucas Uren to the fore forced play to the try line, quick ball, a surging run and well taken try for centre Kelly, converted by winger Olly Mitchell. Up to the half time whistle Keighley repulsed every move from Brods and deserved their lead.

The second half was in many respects more of the same, a midfield arm wrestle interspersed with long kicks to touch. The stalemate was broken when Keighley gaining good possession in their own twenty metre area decided to throw caution to the wind and run it out of defence. A poor decision, a simple knock on gave the Brods a scrum, and an excellent attacking opportunity. Winning the ball they set up a series of drives and rucks. The Keighley defence was forced to cover both sides of the breakdown, which gave strong running prop forward Joey Kafatolu an opportunity. and a well earned try under the posts, converted by Kyle Millward. Brods with their tails up began to move through the gears and some good interplay between forwards and backs put Keighley under serious pressure. Once again a resilient defence held out. Towards the end of the game Brod’s forced a penalty in a kickable position. Although kicker Millward struck it well the swirling wind did it’s work, and to the relief of the Keighley team the ball struck an upright and was quickly kicked out of danger. Both teams gave their all in the final minutes, in order to gain the victory. However, at the final whistle a draw was a fair result for both teams.