​Sandal cling on for revenge win over determined 14-man Ilkley

The home side anticipated a difficult game if they were to overcome their old rivals since they were only two places below them in Regional One North East, writes Howard Newton.

In the event the contest was a game of two halves, with Sandal winning the first and Ilkley proving to be difficult opponents after the interval. But the final score favoured Sandal at 22-17.

Sandal took the field once again without several key players, including Jake Adams, Luke Adams, Danny Groves and Tommy Allott, which enabled a debut home start to be given to Josh Riding, Billy Fawkes and George Jones.

Ilkley made a promising start and after two minutes were awarded a kickable penalty which gave them the lead.

Undeterred, Sandal responded by mounting an attack on the Ilkley line, but fell short when the ball was lost and a try went begging.

With 13 minutes on the clock Ilkley lost a player to a yellow card, which helped Cam Allen to touch down following a home side line-out. With Aaron Dyer kicking the conversion Sandal were now leading 7-3.

Sandal continued to control the game with several telling attacking back moves that gave Joey Allott an opportunity to make ground, forcing his way over in the corner to score an unconverted try to extend the lead to 12-3 on quarter time.

Riding was next to score as he crossed for his maiden try in the corner.

Austen Thompson came to the fore on the half-hour with a splendid barging break to take Sandal into their opponents’ territory and from a subsequent five-metre scrum the ball found Joey Allott who showed his skill in scoring a second unconverted try to take the score to 22-3, which remained until the break.

Sandal unable to spoil Billingham’s promotion party as unbeaten run ends

With the home supporters expecting their team to build on this score in the second half the outcome was unexpected since Ilkley were down to 14 players from the 42nd minute following the receipt of a red card.

From that point on Ilkley played with more aggression and greater determination to put pressure on Sandal throughout the half. While the home side held out for some 26 minutes eventually the pressure told with their defence opening up to let the visitors score a simple converted try under the posts.

Ilkley continued to press home their renewed vigour against a side in disarray and produced another converted try to reduce the deficit by seven points in the third minute of stoppage time.

With six more minutes of stoppage time to play Ilkley had victory in their sights. Sandal held out to win, but in the dying minute Ilkley came close to making at least a draw a reality when they had what they thought was a try disallowed.

Sixth-placed Sandal now take on seventh-placed Cleckheaton at home in a local derby this Saturday (3pm).