Wath on Dearne RUFC 46 - 14 Selby RUFC

A much changed Selby side were well and truly second best against a physical and direct Wath team who dominated all areas of the game. Selby however, did begin in promising fashion and from a position in the Wath 22 almost opened the scoring when Ollie Saunders was released by veteran second rower Jason Cicero, only for the referee to adjudge that the ball had gone forward.

Cicero was replaced soon after by Adam Wass and Selby certainly missed his strength and tenacity around the break down. Within 12 minutes Wath had claimed the first of their 7 tries through Brett Small though the conversion was unsuccessful. After 19 minutes James Blaymire was harshly yellow carded as his tackle was deemed to be dangerously high and Wath made the most of their extra man advantage, scoring two tries through Joe Earp and Steve Wesson, both of which were converted and gave the home side a 19 point advantage. As half time approached the game seemed to be taken away from Selby when Martyn Bray scored his team’s fourth try, though again the conversion was unsuccessful.

Turning round with a 24 point deficit, Selby knew they had a mountain to climb to salvage anything from the game and things went from bad to worse as Wath increased their lead with a further try on 44 minutes. The Selby response was however positive and encouraging. Firstly a typically robust break through the heart of the Wath defence by James Blaymire created the space for leading try scorer Duncan Hardy to cross for his fourth try of the season in only his fifth game for the club, then as Selby began to play with pace and width Saunders was on hand to cross wide out on his wing. Two fine conversions by Iain Adamson reduced the difference between the sides to 15 points, but these set-backs served only to stiffen the resolve of the home side who wrapped up a convincing victory through a further 2 tries for Andy Hopkin, both converted by Martyn Bray and a last minute penalty By Anthony Barrat.

Although Selby will be disappointed by the margin of defeat, there is no doubting that they were very much second best in all departments to a promising looking Wath team and will need to work hard on the training pitch to prepare for another testing encounter next week when Ripon are the visitors to Sandhill Lane.