Stanley Match Report

York RI travelled to Stanley Rodillians on Saturday, expecting a tough encounter against a Rods team that has been going well recently.

The RI kicked the game off and a poor start defensively saw the home side take an early 5-0 lead. Some stern words behind the posts from skipper Frazer Land jolted the visitors into action. RI started to get into the game, supported by a number of penalties for high tackles. Despite a warning from the referee, the high tackles continued and a couple of yellow cards were shown and with the home side down to 13 men, space was found and number 8 Lewis Starbuck cruised over for a try to level the scores at 5-5.

With the scrum becoming dominant, RI had the upper hand for most of the remainder of the half, but strong defence from the home side prevented any score from the visitors, who also had another yellow card shown to them for repeated infringements at the breakdown, frustrating the visiting side and preventing a number of try scoring opportunities.

The half time break came and once again RI started the half poorly, with a couple of missed tackles allowing Stanley over for another try, converted for a 12-5 lead. RI again responded and with the scrum now completely dominant, a Rods 5m scrum was turned over and pushed over for a try, touched down by replacement Hugh Finnegan, converted by Chris Jones to again level the scores at 12-12.

It was following this that another injury occurred in the Stanley front row, and without further front row replacements, frustratingly for the visitors, the game continued with uncontested scrums for the final 30 minutes.

This allowed the beleaguered home forwards a respite and the well performing home back line began to have more of an effect on the game. The game went back and forth for a while, with both sides missing kickable penalties, but with time drawing to a close it was the home side applying the pressure. Some poor decision making from the visitors led to an inability to clear their lines effectively and with last play called following an RI knock on in their own 22, the home side executed a backs move well from the now uncontested scrum, getting outside the defence and scoring under the posts, with the following conversion leaving the final score at 19-12.

Whilst Stanley deserve credit for their performance and were better in a number of areas than the visitors, their was a sense of massive disappointment from RI, with a performance below that which has been seen so far this season, and even so it was felt that the game still could have been won. RI remain top of the table, albeit with the gap having being cut to 6 points following Mosborough’s victory. The final game of 2019 sees the visit of Sheffield Oaks to New Lane next weekend.