Sandal RUFC continued their winning form away at Ilkley in Regional 1 North East by virtue of an outstanding defensive performance to produce a 17-5 victory in a hard fought contest. But in attack too many penalties were conceded being more than double those given away by Ilkley and in addition periods of sloppy play resulted in several tries being lost. Notwithstanding the side stuck to their task and produced a result which lifted Sandal to second in the league in the fourth week of the season.
From the kick-off Ilkley took up a position in the Sandal half and put their opponents under early pressure and with the help of several penalties came close to scoring a number times arising from close quarter exchanges on the Sandal 5 metre line, all of which were repelled by good visitor defence. Sandal continued to be denied possession and came under attack from the Ilkley backs for long periods of the first half but a home side score proved elusive. Eventually, Sandal were awarded a penalty which found touch in the Ilkley half and from the ensuing line-out Declan Thompson broke loose to post his side’s first points with a try in a position to give Tom Hodson the easy task of adding the extras to give the visitors a 7-nil lead. This was taken into the interval after a half in which Ilkley had put Sandal under immense pressure at times .
During the early play of the second half Ilkley received a yellow card following which Sandal was expected to exploit but their play failed to produce the return expected although it was not without trying. After three minutes Sandal was awarded a penalty to touch and from the line-out Tom Hodson placed a superb cross kick towards Jack Handley who gathered but lost his footing with an open line at his mercy and a score was lost. Several minutes later Sandal had two more scoring opportunities which were lost with sloppy play resulting in dropped passes with the line in easy reach. Then mid-way through the half Sandal’s defence let them down for the first time allowing Ilkley to create space resulting in an unconverted try to take the score to 7-5. At this point it was either side’s game but in the following twelve minutes no less than six penalties were conceded, three from each side with the last being converted by Tom Hodson to increase his side’s lead to 10-5 with something over ten minutes to play. Then the highlight of the game was produced when Jake Adams gathered an Ilkley kick up field, made a break before kicking ahead, which was chased down by brother Luke Adams who was quick enough to pick up and touch down for Sandal’s second try. Tom Hodson converted and Sandal’s lead had been extended to a winning score of 17-5. With this score remaining until the final whistle Ilkley held possession and attacked the Sandal line for the final minutes of stoppage time in a valiant attempt to win a losing bonus point but Sandal’s defence held out until the end. On reflection the game was not a classic but it showed that the Sandal players have the ability to produce a victory when not entirely on top of their game with a defence of which they should be proud.
Written by Howard Newton