Silsden Park
Rangers ARLFC
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This game hung in the balance right to
the final whistle, and Silsden will have to look back at their discipline which
cost them the victory throughout this closely competed game with little to
choose between the two sides. It was
Liversedge who took the lead after 20 minutes with a cleverly worked move down
the middle to score a converted try. Silsden’s
response was to kick 2 penalties from the boot of Andy Bowness, the first for
off-side and the second for foul play. Matt
Horne came off the bench and made an immediate impact with some bone crunching
tackles, and Lee Shaw, Chris Langdale, David Illiffe and Chris Greenwood all put
in excellent work to forge attacking field positions.
A short ball from Silsden’s busy scrum half, Jon Gwilliam put Matt
Horne through a gap, and he scored under the posts.
Andy Bowness added the conversion to give the home side a 4 point lead.
Silsden began to dominate in all areas of the game, and were rewarded by
a fine try from winger Steve Lightowler after good work through the halves and
three quarters, prop Chris Langdale threw an excellent long ball for Lightowler
to catch in spectacular fashion to dive over in the corner.
Andy Bowness could not convert to give a half time score of 14-6 to the
Cobbydalers. The second half saw defences on top,
and Neil Jordan was unlucky to have one of the few breaks of the half thwarted
when he passed the ball to one of Liversedge’s retreating players.
Liversedge then broke the Silsden defence, and a last ditch high tackle
from Silsden’s stand-off, Tony Fella, saw the referee produce the red card.
This was the turning point, as Silsden had to reshuffle, bringing John
Williams off the bench in at stand-off and taking off one of the wingers.
Liversedge exploited the lack of cover, and scored a well worked try when
they spread the ball swiftly from left to right to score in the corner a
converted try. With Silsden down to
twelve men, the momentum of the game switched and Liversedge scored again, but
could not add the extras from nearly in front of the posts to lead by 20-14 with
10 minutes left. Silsden pressed
hard, and Craig Spencer was very unlucky to have a try ruled out for not
grounding correctly under extreme pressure from the opposition.
Finally, he crossed and scored in the corner after swift hands though the
Silsden backs exposed the Liversedge flanks.
Andy Bowness kicked a great conversion to level the scores from the right
hand touchline. With seconds left on
the clock, the referee saw some pushing and shoving off the ball, when it was
six of one and half a dozen of the other, and awarded Liversedge a penalty 45
yards out near the touchline. The
Liversedge full back, Craig Sibbic, who had missed several kicks, stood up to be
counted and slotted it trough the uprights to win the game.
The referee blew the final whistle on the first tackle after the restart
to give a final score of Silsden 20, Liversedge 22.
Neil Jordan was man of the match and Jon Gwilliam top tackler with 23
tackles.
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