SIXTH-placed Otley, whose squad was described as "wafer thin" by director of rugby Peter Clegg, may not have won any league points at home to Stourbridge last Saturday in a 27-19 defeat, but at least they could feel a lot better about themselves.

The performance was redemption of sorts after a heavy defeat against Tynedale the previous week on Newcastle Falcons' artificial pitch.

Tynedale triumphed 50-17, and Clegg said: "It was a surface that we had never played on before or even trained on, and the lads were out on their feet by the end against pacy opponents.

"It also cost us a couple of hamstring injuries, and we were wafer thin today.

"Neither Freddie or Henry Watson were available, we had another prop unavailable and James White pulled out overnight as his wife has just given birth and the youngster kept them up all night.

"Maybe we should have made more of our opportunities in the first half but we could also have caved in after they scored two tries at the start of the second half, and I was proud of our last 15 minutes.

"We created one or two opportunities, and I was disappointed in the end that we didn't come away with a bonus point – we would have been happy with that.

"We have had a solid season, we work for each other, we have progressed, we are together as a team and as coaching staff and we can look forward to next season."

Clegg's point about the squad being wafer thin was backed up by the fact that they could only name four players on the replacements' bench – Will Rigg, Simon Raper, Joe Armitage and Joshua Cruise – instead of five.

Two of Otley's three remaining league matches are at Cross Green – on Saturday against Luctonians (3.00) and on April 30 against Harrogate (5.30pm kick-off because of the Tour de Yorkshire cycle race), with the visit to Sandal sandwiched in between.