Ilkley power to record league win

Ilkley moved up to second place with their biggest-ever league win against oppon ents who never wanted to play in Yorkshire Division One.

The vagaries of the league pyramid resulted in a surplus of teams in Northumberland and Durham and a vacancy in Ilkley’s division.

The RFU ruled that Ack-lam, who are from the White Rose county, should make the move, despite the fact they have always played in the Northumberland and Dur-ham League In their normal surround- ings they would probably have been able to hold their own, but the move has led to them becoming the whipping boys.

They arrived at Stacks Field still without a league win but, creditably, with two losing bonus points for finishing within seven points of the victors.

The match programme warned of the need for respect and to avoid a banana skin.

In fact, the outcome was never in doubt and, despite their heroics, never-say-die attitude and excellent sports- manship, both during and after the match, Acklam were simply not in the same class as their opponents, who rack-ed up 12 tries and seven con-versions.

Acklam were tenacious enough to bag two tries of their own.

The mismatch was not great for either side, being demoralising for the visitors and lacking in intensity for Ilkley.

The scoring spree was triggered by a try from Steve Graham following a well-worked line out.

There was a slight scare as carelessness led to an Ack-lam interception but, having won the ball back, man of the match Steven Burns charged upfield to set up a score for Stuart Vincent.

Burns again set up a break for the back line to weave its way towards the line, and debutant Andy Malley cut inside to score his maiden try.

The first of Stuart Brewer’s four tries came after Ilkley reclaimed the ball by pushing the Acklam scrum off the ball close in.

Malley bagged his second with a good move started by the excellent Josh Kimber as the points flowed.

It was Brewer’s turn again as a passing move involving all the backs and several for- wards saw the powerful back row handily placed to score on the wing.

A magnificent rainbow celebrated Brewer’s hat-trick from a classic Ilkley move following a drive from a line-out.

It was 41-0 at half time and it was probably not sur-prising that the quality levels dropped off in the second period.

The one big downside was the early exit from the game of centre JH Johnson with a damaged hamstring.

Thankfully, Tom Collard was on the bench to provide adequate cover.

Again, and to their eternal credit, Acklam stuck to their task and slowed Ilkley’'s scoring rate down.

Having succumbed to a pushover try, Acklam were gifted a penalty for blatant obstruction from which Craig Moffat scored.

For a period, Acklam took a more assertive part in the game as the Dalesmen con-tinued to doze.

A return to penalty con-cession and silly mistakes took hold, but still the points kept coming.

Then down came the cold rain for which the rainbow had been a prelude.

This only made slick hand- ling more difficult and fur-ther detracted from the spectacle.

Kimber set Vincent up for another score with a deli-cately weighted hack to a couple of metres out and under the posts.

Vincent did the rest as pace and strength enabled him to win the chase.

Ryan Cooper, who moved from scrum half to wing to accommpdate Collard, got his name on the scoresheet with a well-engineered try. Kimber got his richly- deserved score with a try after slicing through a flimsy Acklam defence.

At 67-7, with dusk falling and the archetypal rugby scene of hot steam emerging from the 16 scrummagers, the Dalesmen’s game went flat again.

Sloppy play and a series of penalties for back chat to referee Mike Ramsden, allowed the gallant North Yorkshiremen to play within the Ilkley 22 for once.

Having apparently rescued the ball with a turnover, it was gifted back to Acklam for a try.

Kimber produced another perfectly-weighted kick to pro-vide Charlie Davy with the final try.

The scoreline adequately represented the gulf between the teams.

It is to be hoped that the North Yorkshire outfit see their experience in Yorkshire One as a learning process and that being on the receiving end of such results does not put them off playing the game.