Our Weekly National 2 North Round-Up

The latest round of fixtures produced three Yorkshire County derby games and one Roses clash.

Sheffield Tigers were the visitors at the Ferens Ground and were no doubt confident of adding another Hull scalp to their belt following their big home win over Hull Ionians in round four. They took an early lead with a Mark Ireland penalty goal but the remainder of the first half belonged to Hull who ran in three converted tries to lead 21-3 at half-time. Two of those tries came from veteran prop Charlie Beech, not the usual push-over variety, but both fifteen to twenty yard run-ins. The second half saw the Tigers stage a fine come-back as they pulled the score back to 24-18 before nearly snatching a last minute win when right winger Butterworth was judged to have grounded the ball just short of the line in the right-hand corner. Charlie Beech was voted Man-of-the-Match.

Wharfedale are something of a surprise packet so far this season and they carried on their good form with a 33-25 home win over Sheffield RUFC before the biggest attendance (587) of the day in N2N. They have now won four of their five games and after being 19-5 down at the break ran in four second-half tries for a comfortable win. For the second week in succession their Man-of-the-Match was fly-half Sam Gaude who scored a try and landed four conversions.

League leaders Leeds Tykes posted their fifth win on the trot, all against Yorkshire sides, with a massive 52-10 victory over Huddersfield at Lockwood Park after turning round at 33-3. The Tykes ran in 8 tries of which seven were converted. Huddersfield have now conceded 224 points in their five games and although it is still very early days they could be in for a long hard season. The Tykes full-back Charlie Venables took the Man-of-the-Match award.

Hull Ionians entertained Preston Grasshoppers in the only Roses match of the day and dominated the early proceedings to take a 15-0 lead after 25 minutes and were looking to be heading for a big win. However, the Hoppers thought otherwise and between the 32^nd and 45^th minutes they scored three tries to take a lead of 19-15 which they held for the remaining   very tense 35 minutes of play to post a very good away win for themselves. There were no M_O_M details.

 Another very close and tense game was played out at the Woodlands where Fylde were beaten 15-14 by visitors Lymm. Fylde led 7-6 at the break but Lymm were 12-7 ahead and down to thirteen men when Fylde were awarded a penalty try with only a minute to play. In the dying seconds of the match the Lymm fly-half landed a drop-goal to win the game, along with the Man-of-he-Match award, after landing four penalty goals before that. Fylde had scored two tries but had to settle for a losing bonus point.

New boys to the Division Billingham continued with their good start at the higher level with a narrow 12-10 away win at Otley’s Cross Green ground. Otley led 10-6 at the break but could not add to their tally during the second period, whilst Billingham added two more penalty goals to become the second side of the afternoon to win a game without scoring a try.

Finally, Rotherham Titans made their longest trip of the season to take on Tynedale at Station Road, Corbridge. Tyne were still looking for their first win of the season and were losing 13-12 at half-time after a very even first half. The Titans slowly took control of the second half to score at a steady pace, thanks to some very poor discipline from Tyne which allowed the visitors full-back Richard Hayes two more conversions and two penalty goals to make his total three conversions and four penalty goals for a final score of 33-19 to the visitors. Both sides scored three tries but Tynedale will be regretting allowing a kicker of the calibre of Hayes so many chances to punish them with seven from seven successful kicks. Hayes also picked up the Man-of-the- Match award.

Ferensian.

The Unofficial National 2 Yorkshire League Table

	P	W	D	L	F	A	TB	LB	Pts
Leeds Tykes	5	5	0	0	213	108	5	0	30
Hull RUFC	5	3	0	2	130	87	2	1	15
Sheffield Tigers	4	2	0	2	126	85	2	1	13
Rotherham	2	2	0	0	77	34	2	0	10
Hull Ionians	4	2	0	2	103	105	2	0	10
Sheffield RUFC	3	1	0	2	92	101	2	1	7
Wharfedale	2	1	0	1	52	59	1	1	4
Otley	3	0	0	3	69	94	1	2	3
Huddersfield	3	0	0	3	53	132	1	0	1