York RI were again on the road on Saturday, this time making the trip to Sheffield Oaks. The home side have struggled in recent seasons, however have shown improved form so far this season, so a tougher encounter than previous ones was expected.

RI started the game receiving the kickoff and playing up the slope, and straight away went on the attack. Some good breaks were made, however a lack of control allowed mistakes to creep in and frustrated the visitors. Oaks were able to make the occasional foray into the visitors half, but the RI defence was firm. Eventually the visitors settled into the game a bit more and the scoring started through fly half Tim Lewis, who found space on the left and managed to beat the covering defence, converted by hooker Frazer Land for an early 7-0 lead.

The game then became tougher for RI when flanker Franck Rossi was sent to the sin bin after a series of penalties against the visitors. Things became worse not long after, when captain Land was inexplicably sent off by the referee. In trying to charge down a clearance kick, an Oaks defender stepped in from of Land to obstruct him. The referee having not seen the incident clearly, called an off the ball tackle with no arms and gave the hooker his marching orders. With niggle from the home side creeping in and frustration mounting, more yellow cards followed for second row Yohan Barthelemy and replacement hooker Alec Webster, however none of the Oaks players received a card despite being equally responsible for the rising tensions within the game.

This left the visitors facing an uphill battle for the remainder of the game, however with half time approaching and down to 13 men, RI managed to find a second score. Stand in scrum half Ali Jordan exploited space down a blind side and dotted down on the stroke of half time, converted by number 8 Lewis Starbuck to leave the half time score at 14-0.

With now captain Tim Lewis encouraging his team to stay focused on rugby in the second half, RI began to control the game and the second half was largely one way traffic. The next score came from returning centre Sam Royle, who broke through the middle and managed to beat a number of Oaks defenders, going 50 metres to score in the corner, 19-0. RI continued to press and this resulted in strong running second row Barthelemy scoring a couple of tries, both unconverted to take the score out to 29-0. The next and final score of the game went to Starbuck, with Rossi taking over the kicking duties to add the conversion to take the score out to 36-0. With about 5 minutes remaining and tempers beginning to flare again, resulting in a couple of stoppages, the referee called an early end to the game.

Ultimately RI come away from the game with a 6-try bonus point win and pleasingly a clean sheet as well through some very strong defence for the duration, despite being down to 14 men, and at times 13. This leaves them at the top of the table with 27 points from a possible 30 following the first round of games. The next fixture will be the return fixture with Hessle, with the game at New Lane taking place on 9th November.