16th November 2024
Sandal RUFC suffered this season’s third away defeat, this time against York RUFC who were positioned one league place below their opponents in Regional 1 North East. From Sandal’s point of view it was a disappointing performance which included a plethora of uncharacteristic mistakes and poor decisions leading to York posting a well-deserved 36-21 victory, with the final score not truly reflecting their superiority in all quarters of the encounter.
From the start the visitors were put under pressure by York’s unremitting attacking play which Sandal had problems in defending but did for a while during which their ball retention was severely limited. Then towards the end of the first quarter York had a try disallowed which was quickly followed by a telling passing movement in the back line resulting in a converted score to take a 7-nil lead. Sandal continued to defend but in the 22nd minute suffered another blow when Jack Handley received a yellow card as a result of a high tackle. During the following play Sandal lost a scrum against the head giving the home side the opportunity to mount another attacking move which resulted in an unconverted try in the corner, after a good build up across field to stretch Sandal’s defence to the limit taking the score to 12-nil. Unfortunately for Sandal the errors continued and decisions to kick away the little possession they had only added to their demise. Such that in the 33rd minute York took advantage from one such kick into the home side half from where a simple attacking move was engineered resulting in a converted try to put Sandal 19 points in arrears. As half time approached arising from a penalty and a successful 5 metre line-out Sandal finally put points on the board when Cam Nyambega crashed over and with Tom Hodson converting a 19-7 deficit score was taken into the break.
After the interval Sandal started better but their progress failed to produce points but in the ninth minute of the half the home side progressed into the Sandal 22 from where a York kick ahead was gathered resulting in a bonus point try in the corner which was converted. This was quickly followed by another York try to take the score to 31-7 after 53 minutes. Something now had to happen if Sandal were not to be at the end of a humiliating defeat and fortunately the visitors defended and attacked better such that after 71 minutes they created a move to give Luke Adams the space to score in the corner and with Tom Hodson adding the extras the score moved to 31-14. But York’s scoring task was not complete and a sixth try was added in the 76th minute. However, Sandal had the final say when Declan Thompson forced his way over for a consolation try under the posts three minutes later and with Tom Hodson converting the final score remained at 36-21 even though the visitors in the dying minutes tried valiantly to add to their score in order to leave with at least one bonus point but it was not to be. In summing up York proved, on the day, to be a much stronger side playing with determination and aggression and fully deserved to move into the second league place replacing Sandal in this position.

Written by Howard Newton