Sandal Cougars welcomed a strong Ilkley side, who won the Cougars league last year. After five straight wins for the Cougars, they were in a confident mood to cause an upset. From the off, the Cougars went for an early score and were on the offensive for about 20minutes. Ill-discipline from the home side allowed Ilkley to kick at goal, which just missed. Ilkley came into the game more and were causing problems for the Cougars in the scrum and were starting to dominate the breakdown. Like in previous games the Cougars were winning plenty on good possession in the lineout, Blackhurst was causing so many problems for Ilkley on their own throw in that they had to change the thrower. The Cougars had a couple of chances to score but were held up over the line on one occasion. Half time arrived and the game was evenly matched at 0-0.
The second half started poorly for the Cougars and Ilkley slotted a penalty kick to take the lead 3-0. Ilkley started to put some good phases together and this coupled with some sloppy mistakes allowed Ilkley to score a well taken try and go 8-0 up. The home side were not out of it and were trying their best to manufacture an opening but the defense from the away team was strong and their open side flanker was starting to win a lot of ball on the ground and stop any Cougar attack.
With the game about to end, Ilkley kicked through, the ball bounced kindly and enabled one of their backs to fly-hack through and dive on the ball, the conversion was added and Ilkley won 15-0.
Great effort by all, there were chances, which need to be taken if the Cougars harbor ambitions of playing in the Premier League in the near future. This is a mostly a young team who are enjoying playing good open rugby. A special mention must go to the Seckhams, Purcells and Hunts, who between their respective family names provided 6 players for this particular squad.
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