Selby RUFC 27 v 31 Hullensians RUFC

Report by Ian Marlow

Selby’s hopes of avoiding the drop from Yorkshire One suffered a catastrophic blow on Saturday with a disastrous loss to fellow strugglers Hullensians in a relegation dog fight at Sandhill Lane. And the abject misery of the watching faithful was massively magnified as, with the game seemingly won at 27-7 well into the second half and with Hullensians in apparent complete disarray without even the chance of a bonus point consolation, Selby suffered a collapse of England cricket-like proportions to somehow contrive to not only lose the match, and the desperately needed league points, but gift the five league points to their relegation competitors in a double whammy from which they may not recover.

With several leading players unavailable attending the England-Wales international, Selby were still hopeful of the win due to their recent league improvements together with Hullensians recent free fall down the league, where they were on a long losing streak. Playing into the strong breeze on an unusually sticky pitch Selby started well with Charlie Cicero combining with Ash Dallimore to feed Danny Wilkinson for a fine opening try. Hullensians replied immediately as weak tackling allowed them to level the scores before a long kick dead from the Humbersiders gave Selby a great scrum position from which Henry Wright expertly put Ian Adamson over to retake the lead 12-7. And that’s how the score remained up to half time as both teams struggled for coherency or control, making errors galore, causing this correspondent to overhear one spectator with a distinctly East Yorkshire accent to not inexpertly surmise that both team were “trying to see who can play the worst”.

However, having seemingly done the hard work into the conditions, Selby were now favourites and when Wright slotted over a penalty, followed by Mark Tanner and Cicero combining to score from a 5m line out, they were firmly in the diving seat. And when Protheroe then strolled through the middle of a maul for another converted try to make it 27-7 Hullensians were surely ‘dead and buried’ – after all, they were reduced to 14 men for a yellow card offence, they were playing into a stiff breeze, they hadn’t won a match in living memory, and they were bickering amongst themselves like quarrelsome siblings.

Unfortunately, to the increasing dismay of the Swans’ following (and increasing joy of the other lot) there then followed the worst 30 minutes of rugby this correspondent can remember, as all of Selby’s frailties aligned to form a perfect storm of incapability. It would be unfair not to mention Hullensians’ part in their own Lazarus-like revival but in truth this was primarily a mess of Selby’s own making as they were simply incapable of the most basic of tasks – balls dropped at the slightest contact; passes into thin air; passes direct to the opposition; paper tissue tackles; silly penalties conceded; they all made an appearance, and it seemed that if Selby had been tasked with tying their own shoelaces they would have failed.

And so it came to pass that inevitably, led by their excellent no 7, Hullensians scored, and again, and again, and again (and if you want the details, I suggest you read their match report as it is all too painful to recount here) to not only win the match and climb out of the relegation bog themselves - but to do so by stepping on Selby’s head to push them further into the mire.

Selby are now at home to fellow relegation strugglers North Ribblesdale on Saturday and who knows what may happen.