Skipton RU 35

Huddersfield YMCA 26

(Yorkshire II)

A DEFLATED YMCA side were left licking their wounds at Skipton after a shambolic first half led to their second defeat of the season and put a serious question mark over their title credentials.

Certainly the boggy Sandylands ground was not conducive to YM’s speedy runners, and referee Andrew Scott’s curious decisions did little to favour the visitors, but nevertheless, this was one of the worst opening 40 minutes rugby that Damon Scholes’ side have produced for a long time.

Another repeat of this showing and even promotion won’t be ‘a gimme’ never mind their title hopes!

They did improve in the second half, and after pulling back to within four points of the home side at 30-26 with five minutes remaining, there was a slight hope they may just scrape through – but sadly, their ‘get out of jail’ cards for once ran out.

After 20 minutes they were trailing only to a single Darren Howson penalty and there was no indication of what was to follow.

But then a lapse in concentration allowed lively winger Lucas Wooton to skip through some woeful tackling for Skipton’s opening try, and suddenly the floodgates opened.

Howson converted the score and added two more penalties, the second of which came after YM centre Chris Williams was sin-binned, and Wooton then repeated his earlier dose by ghosting through the visitors’ almost non-existent defence for his second touchdown.

And when ageing scrum half Kev Bottomley trundled 30 yards, down the touchline for another converted try from a scrum, the game was virtually out of reach.

Not surprisingly, a furious Scholes gave his side a tongue-lashing of seismic proportions at half-time which finally seemed to stir the team from their torpid state, and they finally got on the board after 48 minutes with a pushover try, Walker getting the touchdown, Smith adding the conversion.