THERE was a double rainbow at the end of Ilkley's National League Three North home victory over Cleckheaton last Saturday and the trees were putting on their finest collection of colours.

However, Ilkley's head of rugby Rhys Morgan was not bothered by the hues – rainbow or autumnal at Stacks Field.

He was more worried as to how Ilkley had almost let the Moorenders collect bonus points for losing by seven points or less and for scoring four tries after the Dalesmen had been in command at 31-5 coming up to the hour.

Ilkley, who needed Elliot Morgan's try just before half-time to give them a 17-5 interval advantage that was much more in keeping with their dominance, added tries by Nick Carolan and Steve Nolson to the other scored in the first half by Iain McKenzie.

It seemed that Cleckheaton would be in for a tough final quarter but Morgan senior was surprised how the home side then switched off, allowing the visitors two tries and a conversion and a potential try refusal by their former player Ronan Evans, who didn't back himself after making an interception.

"I have given the players a bit of a roasting about the last 20 minutes when we let Cleckheaton back into it after we had played so well against Stockport and Sheffield."

Ilkley were dominant in the first half but could not capitalise on a string of Cleckheaton errors, which included missed kicks for touch and loose passes, until Mackenzie struck from a catch and drive at a line-out.

Morgan added: "We stuck to our game-plan well in the first half but got into their red zone four or five times and made a mess of the line-out or dropped the ball, and that was disappointing."

More pleasing was that Ilkley came out on top in both periods when the sides were a man short, McKenzie being sin-binned in the 35th minute and Cleckheaton No 8 Richard Piper seeing yellow in the 47th minute.

Winning these ten-minute periods was something that Morgan had stressed pre-match, and his son went over when the home side were down to 14 men, while Carolan and Nolson crossed when visiting skipper Piper was off the pitch as sixth-placed Ilkley took their league record this season to played eight, won five, lost three.

With no game at the weekend due to the World Cup final, Ilkley's next match is at Wirral a week on Saturday.