TWENTY-four hours after Bradford Salem's controversial Yorkshire Shield quarter-final at West Leeds, there was more high-octane excitement in the final of the Spray Plant UK Ltd Aire-Wharfe Cup final at Ilkley.

However, with a first half that was played in a snowstorm and hardly an incident of note, this one was a slow burner compared to the action at Blue Hill Lane a day earlier.

Old Otliensians led 5-0 at half-time but it was 10-10 at full-time and after 20 minutes' extra-time.

The visitors, with the tries at two apiece, thought they had won as the away team over Ilkley Seconds.

However, competition chairman John Riley ruled, as he would have done the night before in the Aire-Wharfe Plate final had it been necessary, that both teams would have five kicks at goal from the 22-metre line in front of the posts.

In an exhibition of goal-kicking that was a mixture of tired limbs, poor technique and nerves as the ball often slewed off to the right, Otliensians missed all four of their kicks at goal, while Ilkley landed two via Will Marlow and Kirk Arundale.

Otliensians' coach John Walker said: "We should have been awarded the match as the away team.

"It was an appalling decision. The Aire-Wharfe Cup chairman is making rules up on the night."

However, Riley countered: "I am in charge and I wanted the competition settled by something that relied on skills, such as a goal-kicking competition.

"If it is good enough for the Heineken Cup, it is good enough for us."

Otliensians took the lead with the only incisive attack of the first half, with Kristian Keinhorst's pin-point kick ahead being taken by Charles Westland, who offloaded for Luke Freer to score.

There were knock-ons aplenty in the cold and with a slippery ball but Ilkley looked a different team in the second half.

A good Marlow break came to nothing in the first minute but flanker Charles Davy levelled with a try four minutes later, David Smith putting Ilkley ahead with a 67th-minute try before Rob Arbuckle ploughed over in the left-hand corner 12 minutes later to force extra-time.