Saturday 16th December 2006
Burley II XV 36 Skipton III XV 7
Stuart Nicholls, M Benn, Duncan Elsey
Alex Williams, Eddie Parkhouse
Mark Lyons, Paul Wheeler, XXXX
Joey Siddall
T Benn
Gav Leeman, Martin O'Conner, Guest, XXXX
15
Karl Heywood
The new revitalised second team continued their recent success with an emphatic victory over a strong Skipton side that was packed with plenty of bulk. Tries from youngsters Gavin Leeman (2) Martin O'Conner (2) and Karl Hayward were rounded off with a try from veteran second row Duncan Elsey making an appearance at tight-head prop. Three of the scores being converted by the boot of young Timmy Benn. With Richard Schmidt not being able to engage the services of an appointed referee, Luke Ribbons ably stepped in to the breach and did an admirable job if a little reluctant to allow some early advantages to run their course. However once settled into the game, if with the odd showing of not knowing certain rules, a fine performance ensued. Both sides used the forwards early on with Burley more ready to throw the ball to the backs and produce the early entertaining rugby. With Skipton pressed into the bottom corner the lead for Burley was not long in coming with Duncan Elsey unable to ground the ball over the line when trying a "quarterback sneak" due to stout Skipton defence after fine work from Paul Wheeler, Mark Lyons and Alex Williams. From the resultant scrimmage Burley moved the ball out left and fine handling saw Gavin Leeman in out wide for a 5-0 lead. Most of the game continued in the Skipton half and further enterprising handling and some little deft kicks from Stand-off Tim Benn, showing years beyond his age, through the Skipton line saw the backs, ably led by scrum-half and captain Joey Siddall conjure up further tries for Gavin Leeman and Martin O'Conner spread around a majestic run from Karl Hayward for his score. This a well earned try following on from last week's man of the match appearance against Wibsey. A 24-0 lead was no less than Burley deserved at half-time.The interval saw the opposition complain about fringing and being helped out of rucks with aid of the Burley footwear. Skipton started the second half with the same intention that Burley started the first, to play the game in the bottom right hand corner. This is what happened at first and some great defence was shown from Burley including some clattering tackles from Mick Benn, Alex Williams and Ed Parkhouse in addition to some excellent clearances from the ever influential Tim Benn and one excellent touch finder from the boot of Stuart Nicholls when stuck three yards in from touch on the Burley line. However the defence was breached for the only time in the match when a confusion of the scrummaging law's saw extra numbers in the Skipton back line and a wayward Burley pass was successfully chased up for a score close enough to the posts for Skipton to convert for 7 points. By this time though our opposition were looking rather blown out, and foraging runs from Mark Lyons, Ed Parkhouse and Alex Williams prompted by subtle number 8 play courtesy of Paul Wheeler, despite his cursing about the number of kicks that we put in during the second half, soon led to a second try for Martin O'Conner. The strong running excellent backing up and good handling continued up the hill and one classic move culminated in a ten yard pass from Stuart Nicholls giving veteran forward Duncan Elsey a run in up the right wing to the top corner from 12 yards out for one of the rarest things seen in a Burley shirt, records say his third try since joining the club at the start of the 1998 season. The conversion being narrowly missed by young man of the match Tim Benn. It was good to see the small crowd obviously depleted by events across the road but including former players Garry Jaques and Dave Treanor, were well entertained by the flowing rugby played and thanks from both teams go to Luke for standing in with the whistle.