Burley V Yarnbury II
22nd September 2007.
Burley travelled to Horsforth to play this replacement fixture with Yarnbury II's after West Park Warriors informed us they would not be making the trip across the Pennines.
The game started with Yarnbury putting pressure on the Burley lines with well positioned kicks and good hard running from all the backs, but especially the outside centre who made good yardage and proved a handful for the Burley defenders.
Yarnbury were also enjoying a slight edge in the lineouts where their veteran second row partnership were utilising all their experience to put pressure on the Burley line.
As the first half continued though Burley began firing on all cylinders and started to dominate. If much of the first 15 minutes was played in Burley territory the next 25 was played in the Yarnbury half.
The Burley scrummage started to work well (with James Farad playing well in his first start in the front row) and the line-out started to find it's feet resulting in good quality ball for the Burley backs to work with.
The first Burley try came from a perfectly executed lineout move with Sean 'Gob' Robertson delivering a perfect ball to James 'Hard to hold for that long in the air' Palfery-Smith who delivered a great ball to a rampaging Milosz, who made huge inroads into the Yarnbury 22 and set up the backs to pass quickly through the hands and Andrew Bissett to score in the opposite corner. One of the best Burley tries for many a year. The conversion was narrowly missed by the returning Ritchie Parish.
The rest of the half saw both teams enjoy their moments of possession with both sets of forwards showing committed play and the backs cancelling each other out in defense.
At half time the usually angry Burley coach, Luther Bissett, delivered a remarkably calm half time tactical talk to his charges and introduced Dan Johnston and Jamie Ferguson to the game for Ritchie Christie and Paul 'Tramp' Pinder.
The second half developed into a tight affair with Burley enjoying territorial domination as the older Yarnbury pack tired but the Yarnbury backs kicking and breaking well.
Yarnbury were the next to score though when the referee called a Yarnbury penalty but signalled a Burley penalty with his arm. Burley went to sleep thinking the ball was ours to clear and the Yarnbury scrum half took full advantage of the confusion, took a quick tap and his backs went in for the try (which again wasn't converted).
The game continued to be tight until the final 15 minutes when the Yarnbury backs delivered another good kick deep into Burley territory and, via an obvious knock-on missed by both officials, managed to dive over the Burley line for a converted score.
As time started to run out Burley pushed hard with even their usually ball-shy loose head prop Jamie 'I'm the only one pushing in this scrum' Ferguson being seen to drive the ball up. In the final 5 minutes the Burley pack continued to make yards, driven on by Mark 'Odd tache' Walton until the Yarnbury defense opened up for the backs to score another good try in the left corner, bravely scored by Andy Bissett who was injured in the process. Ritchie Parish wasn't going to miss 2 kicks in a row and slotted this one over with relative ease.
Soon afterwards the final whistle blew signalling the end of an entertaining game played by two well matched teams. Burley couldn't help feel though that had decisions gone our way we would have come out winners. Still a 12-12 result is a step in the right direction for the Burley Boys.