Sandal enjoy 11-try spree to breeze through to Yorkshire Cup semi-finals

In the first meeting between the two sides for 15 years the hosts totally outplayed their opponents, who play their league rugby at a level below Sandal, posting 11 tries and six conversions, writes Howard Newton.

Reward for the impressive display is a semi-final away to Doncaster Phoenix when they can expect a much tougher test and will need to turn out a full side of first team regulars.

Sandal started slowly against Bridlington as they were held at bay by good defensive work by the visitors, who defended several attempts to score from a close-in scrum and line-out.

But after 15 minutes the Brid defence wavered when a line-out in the top corner gave winger Cam Bainbridge an opportunity to touch down and give his side a 5-0 lead.

Sandal continued to put pressure on and from a scrum in front of the posts the ball was spun out across the back line to find Bainbridge again who coasted in for his second unconverted try, taking his side’s lead to 10-0 in the 24th minute.

Bridlington continued to compete well, but found it difficult to break through a strong home side defence.

As half-time approached Sandal again attacked with a gradual build-up involving both forwards and backs, which ended with a telling break by prop forward Alex Edler.

He handed handed on to a lively Archie Milner who backed up well and made no mistake in scoring his maiden first XV try.

Jake Adams added the extras to take his side’s score to 17-0 at the interval.

Now playing with slope advantage in the second half, Sandal soon added to their score through a try by Luke Adams which originated from a penalty to touch.

A line-out and good back play followed before Luke darted over then Jake Adams added the conversion to stretch the lead to 24 points two minutes into the half.

While Sandal now felt comfortable with their score Bridlington quickly reduced their deficit with a well taken try in the top corner, which could not be converted.

Then followed a purple patch for Danny Grainger who scored two tries in a four minute period, both of which were converted by Jake Adams to take Sandal’s unassailable lead to 38-5.

The next score came from Bainbridge when he touched down for his hat-trick try on 53 minutes.

A further six minutes elapsed before Danny Groves broke free from his own half before handing on to the supporting Jake Adams who used his undoubted skill to cross under the posts and make it easy for him to convert his own try to take the score to 50-5 with 16 minutes still to play.

At this point Bridlington mounted a determined attack which produced a consolation converted try.

But with little left in the game for Brid it gave the home side an opportunity to capitalise in the last 10 minutes, which they did with three further tries scored by Ben Reynolds, Jake Adams and Alex Edler, one of which was converted by Jake Adams to take the winning score to 67-12.

This was an obviously acceptable result, but was too much of a one-sided contest to make it an exciting game to watch.

One player at least, Jake Adams, must have enjoyed the afternoon as he scored 22 points or a third of his side’s score.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​