YMCA safely negotiated their Senior Vase third round tie at Pocklington - despite being starved of possession for most of the match!

Following the signing of Moortown flier Rob Brown on the wing (who notched the opening score), YM now have pace to burn all down the threequarter line.

And it was obvious from an early stage that Pocklington's game plan was to keep the ball among the forwards, thereby limiting the Laund Hill side the chance to run at them.

And to that end the home side were undoubtedly helped by 'picky' referee Douggie Chapman, who penalised YM's frustrations to the tune of 15-5 in favour of Pocklington.

After fly-half Sandy Mitchell had missed an early penalty chance for the Percy Roaders, YM demonstrated their lightning speed when fast hands sent the ball down the line from a scrum 35 yards out, and left-winger Brown scorched over in the corner.

Although Graeme Sarjeant was unable to add the conversion, he did slot over a 16th minute penalty and the travelling supporters were looking forwards to a comfortable passage against their Yorkshire II opponents.

However, aided by a succession of penalties, Pocklington piled on a concerted spell of pressure, only to be denied several times by some desperate defending.

But when YM did finally break out of their own half, the response was instant and effective flanker Mark Eastwood smashed through a gap in the line for a converted try.

Pocklington refused to change their approach, however, and thanks to winning virtually every line out throughout the game, rumbled back towards YM's line, from where scrum half Phil Priestley touched down on the stroke of the half-time whistle.

Mitchell missed the conversion, and that was their last scoring chance.

They did have the benefit of masses of possession in the second half, but had limited ideas as to what to do with it, other than trundle down the middle.

And on the rare occasions they did try to spread it, one or other of their backs spilled the pass.

James Bracken and Brad Dobson came on for prop Darrell McSwiney and No9 Simon Bowker on the hour, Neil Walker moving to scrum half and they had to work doubly hard after new hooker David Guegue found himself in the sin-bin for 10 minutes.

It was certainly a good exercise in tackling as YMCA played most of the second half without any ball.

But with three minutes to go, they did finally got a sight of it and, after skipper Mava Iosefa and winger Chris Cowling took play out of their own 22, Stuart Morton blazed through a gap and over the halfway line before getting a perfect pass out to full-back David Rees, who outstripped the remnants of cover on the way to his ninth try of the season.

YMCA: Rees; Cowling, Morton, Iosefa, Brown (Travis 75); Sarjeant, Bowker (Bracken 60); McSwiney (Dobson 60), Guegue, Watson, Hellawell, Housley, Eastwood, Anderson, Walker.

Pocklington: Bennett, Morley, Jackson, Rook, Nixon, Mitchell, Priestley, Fell, Birch, Kelly, Biggin, Bean, Wilcock, Holloway, Stuart. Subs: Smith, Hobbs, Rowley.

Referee: D Chapman (YRS).