The blue and golds just scraped through this frustratingly stop start encounter at the Beverley Leisure Centre last Saturday.
Almost every petty offence by either side seemed to be penalised. Three beverley payers, Mike Cooper, Ryan Watkin and Dan Clark spent ten minutes in the sin-bin with a visiting player also receiving his marching orders for ten minutes. On top of this, play was held up for 45 minutes midway through the second half to allow with the emergency services to deal with what appeared to a serious leg injury to a Park Rangers player.
Defences were on top in the opening exchanges, and it took until the 17th minute for the deadlock to be broken. The visitors took the lead with a converted try. The hosts replied just five minutes later courtesy of Gavin Proctor getting on the end of a Nathan Wilkinson offload to score besides the posts. Watkin adding the extras. Shortly after it was Watkin’s clever kick bobbling along the ground which saw Ian Esselmont pounce to score a try which was again converted. With half- time fast approaching Beverley showed some of their best rugby with quick hands to the right which saw Ben Calvert send Lee Falcus away to show good pace and score behind the posts. The conversion went over for a 18-6 interval lead.
The second half begun well for the hosts. Some good hands to the left saw Steve Connolly join the line and send Mike Cooper, who ran strongly for all afternoon, over beside the posts. Regular goal kicker Ryan Watkin was in the sin-bin, and the conversion was missed. The rest of the game saw the hosts panick at times close to the opposition line and generally allowed themselves to be dragged into an arm-wrestle. The long hold up midway through the second half appeared to lift the visitors.
They added two converted tries and really made the hosts sweat. Ryan Watkin added a late penalty goal to steady Beverley’s nerves. The strong running Mike Cooper took the committee man of the match award in a generally below par performance. Steve Connolly was probably the next-best performers. His safeness under the high ball and strong clearing runs was of great comfort to his side who went close to an embarrassing defeat.
Final Score : Beverley ARLC 24 Haworth Park Rangers 16 | Report by Nick Robinson
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