Otley notched their fourth away victory of the season, doubling last season’s tally, to go fourth in the league on a weekend in which other games were affected by the weather. The conditions at Lockwood Park were surprisingly good given all the rain that had fallen, although it is likely the team’s kit would have to go into a deep clean soak afterwards.

Otley made a confident start mirroring their current form and knowing that they had beaten Huddersfield at Cross Green earlier in the season, and after 12 minutes Johnathan Matthews peeling off a driving maul to force his way over. Ben Cooper added the conversion.

But the hosts were not to be outdone and pressed Otley’s line, but their No7 Gareth Lewis was shown a straight red for stamping on Rob Afoa Peterson’s head. Three minutes later Anthony Stringwell went over, although the conversion was missed. Otley then hit back when Johnathan Matthews’s excellent pass on the overlap allowed Stephen Depledge to go over that Ben Cooper converted before adding a penalty.

Trailing 17-5 at the interval, relegation-threatened Huddersfield needed the first score of the second half, and got it when full back Tom Owen ran from just inside Otley’s ten-metre line to cross, winger Luke Booth converting to pull the deficit back to five points.

Cooper’s penalty in the 50th minute on an afternoon put the home side needing to score twice which they went about with relish putting Otley under constant pressure for the remainder of the match, despite only having 14 players. Luke Booth’s penalty in the 75th minute put them within striking distance, by which time Otley were also down to 14 with the sin-binning of Rob Afoa Peterson.

Huddersfield looked to have snatched victory as the ball was passed from left to right across Otley’s line, only to knock on at the crucial moment, leaving Otley as relieved winners and up to fourth in the table. It is known that Huddersfield saw the final 15 minutes differently to how the referee decided.

This win gave Tom Rock the leaving present he was after before he leaves to pursue a career as an RAF officer, Tom saying “A year ago we would have lost this game because we would have had a non-kicking fly half in me and no line defence, so this win shows how far we have come in 12 months. Now I will be taking a back seat until next month when I begin work but we are in good hands with Mark Luffman, Niel Hargreaves and Ryan Duckett”.