Sandal suffer goal kicking woes as they are edged out of Yorkshire Cup by Scarborough

The difference proved to be that the home side converted each of their tries while Sandal failed with every conversion attempt to give Scarborough a slim 28-25 victory and a place in the next round of the competition against Morley, writes Howard Newton.

While Scarborough play in North Two East and are currently in the bottom position with no wins from five games they deserved their victory against a Sandal side comprised essentially of second team players who fought hard, but in the end fell short.

The opening exchanges indicated that there was nothing to pick between the two sides, but after 11 minutes Scarborough set up an attacking move and scored their first converted try under the posts to take a 7-0 lead.

Sandal fought back immediately and from a penalty line-out close to their opponents’ line a driving maul took Ben Reynolds over the line with the score moving to 7-5.

Then followed a lengthy period during which each side found it difficult to penetrate their opponents’ defence with the exchange of field position and penalties.

As half-time approached a Scarborough player received a yellow card which gave Sandal the advantage from which Luke Adams was able to touch down in the corner from a line-out to give his side a 10-7 lead at the interval.

The second half opened with Sandal on the offensive taking play into the home side’s half but in the 47th minute disaster struck when a sloppy pass was intercepted to give Scarborough a 70-metre dash to the line to score a converted try under the posts to retake a 14-10 lead.

Undeterred, Sandal continued to attack and had a try disallowed, but in the 56th minute Cam Bainbridge broke through the Scarborough defence to score an unconverted try to make it 15-14.

Three minutes later Joe Bacon was next to score near the posts, being his first team debut try. Again the conversion was missed but Sandal had increased its lead to 20-14.

This score prompted Scarborough to mount another telling attack with the result that they had a try disallowed and when Cam Bainbridge was judged to have deliberately knocked on in an attempt to intercept the home side was awarded a penalty try and Sandal a yellow card.

Soon after Scarborough scored their fourth converted try which might be considered fortunate since in the build-up a knock-on and a forward pass were missed, but the score stood, virtually putting paid to Sandal’s passage into the next round.

However, in the final minute Brad Kittrick scored a consolation try to take the final score to 28-25 in Scarborough’s favour.