WEST PARK LEEDS 17 SELBY 8
Yorkshire Division Two

Selby travelled to the impressive facilities of their foes of old, West Park Leeds to round off the first half of the season with the confidence of last week’s Shield win over first division Pocklington to boost their morale.
The team showed a couple of changes with Kiwi Karim Brown coming in for the unavailable teenage star Jay Robinson in the back row, second row veteran jason Cicero relegating the equally antique Mark Toye to the bench alongside wingman Alex Arthur which allowed Ollie Saunders the starting berth.
If the sun shone on the Swans last week, then the heaven’s rained down on them this, with a howling, biting wind & icy rain blasting across the wide open spaces of the Bramhope pitch discomfitting both sides & making for a thoroughly miserable day.
WPL however, seemed to make less of the dismal conditions than their visitors, who at times appeared as though they may have been happier Christmas shopping.
The early stages were dominated by the home side and it was not too long into the game when a simple break by No 10 Davies created a huge hole in the Selby defence and the ball was quickly transferred to winger Nightingale to fly in and give Davies an easy chance to convert.
The slope on the pitch appeared to favour West Park , but Selby fought upfield to be rewarded with a penalty by off half Josh Cruise. But with the visitors once again guilty of some sloppy tackling, winger Bickerdike stormed through a static defence for a soft try, comfortably converted by Davies.
Nothing seemed to be going right for Selby, & strangely on such a cold day the ball seemed like a hot potato, however the most alarming problem was the lack of effective tackling.

The second half started with Selby taking advantage of the slope and pressurising the home defence, which was not found wanting until a long driving maul ended with resident Aussie Duncan Hardy claiming the score.
Selby then rang the changes with the seventeen year old Cruise limping off to be replaced by Arthur with full back Dan Porter moving forward to 10. Toye & Tom Bell replaced Cicero & Martin Protheroe.
The game, however continued in the same vein with Selby simply running out of ideas against the resolute home defence & a silly penalty for crossing just about summed up the lack of cohesionin this week’s display.
Next week’s visitors are the in form Hullensians with the 2.15 kick off being preceded by the Muffets luncheon, so the standard of spectating should , at least, be worth the entrance money.