Hullensians RUFC 56 – 0 Selby RUFC

Report by Ray Adamson

The Selby first fifteen suffered an afternoon to forget at Hullensians, returning with one of the biggest defeats in League Rugby. The odds were stacked against them before a ball was kicked as confusion and misunderstanding meant that they arrived at Hull with just 2 replacements, one of which was the irrepressible Duncan Phillips who recently started his 40th season of Rugby at Selby.

Despite the score-line, there were moments of promise in all areas of the pitch and no lack of effort from a significantly outweighed and inexperienced Selby side. On a day when Hullensians seemed to click with everything that they did or tried, Selby failed to match the cohesion and precision of the Home team.

Things at the beginning of each half showed glimpses of what Selby are capable of as they took the game to Hullensians and dominated both possession and territory. However they found themselves facing a robust and well organised defence which they were unable to breach despite all of their best efforts and once the home defence managed to overcome the early onslaught they were able to establish dominance in most phases of the game. Selby had a chance to open the scoring in the very first minute but fly half Scott Hunt dragged his kick wide from a difficult angle and once Hullensians opened their account in the 12th minute the writing was pretty much on the wall as backs and forwards began to combine and produce phase after phase which eventually left Selby's defence with just too much to do. Their cause was dealt a massive blow after just 22 minutes when work horse flanker James Blaymire was forced to hobble off the pitch with an ankle injury and from that point the home side really began to dictate the pattern of the game. A clever kicking game kept Selby in their own half for most of the rest of the game and when presented with any kind of scoring opportunity the Hullensians team seemed to come up trumps every time, scoring 6 tries in total in the first half and reaching the interval with a commanding 34 point lead.

To their enormous credit, the Selby players came out for the second half with tremendous resolve and really got stuck in, but were unable to find the key to unlock the home defence. It took until the 60th minute for Hullensians to create a further scoring opportunity when, against the run of play scrum half Chris Smith broke away from his own 5 metre line and ran the length of the field for a tremendous individual try. With the game out of reach Selby threw caution to the wind and their adventurous approach succeeded only in leaving them susceptible to counter attacks from the Hullensians backs. A breakaway by fullback Will Simpson in the 66th minute and an interception try for Smith from his own ten metre line which completed the scoring after 72 minutes just served to compound Selby's misery, the home side finishing with a ten try, 56 point victory which would have been greater had they managed to convert more than just 30% of their kicks at goal.

Next week sees an eagerly awaited local derby against York and the Selby players will need no motivation to go out, avenge the results from last season's encounters and get the win that will finally open their Yorkshire One account.