West Park celebrate 60 years with derby win against Yarnbury

Yarnbury 12

A SHORT-HANDED Yarnbury side travelled to local rivals West Park for this Yorkshire Two game on Saturday.

A good crowd is always there for this fixture and this one was celebrating the 60th anniversary of the founding of this young club.

Coupled with the last game for the home coach Myles Rutherford before his return to Australia, Yarnbury were in for a challenging fixture on the day

They were short of bulk in the pack and lacking pace out wide due to Josh Bateson, who was unavailable because of work, Yarnbury had to use different strategies to overcome the 'pumped up ' opposition.

Playing up the slope, most of the play was in the middle of the park as both sides had equal possession without making a breakthrough. Luke Cowley was seen as the break-out threat down the left wing, but was well tackled by the defence on several occasions.

Neither side showed sufficient guile to get the first score until the last ten minutes of the half saw Park make the breakthrough down the left side, creating an overlap for centre Matthew Kluwe to score the first try, converted by stand-off Harry Garner.

As the half was drawing to a close, Yarnbury were pushed for a score. After several forward drives with second row James Falgate again to the fore, the ball was astutely kicked behind the defence to the left by Danny Pound for winger Cowley to score a try. Pound converted to tie the scores at the break.

West Park had missed one a good chance earlier when the final pass to winger Rhys Thompson was put down with the line open. But they started the second half brightly, and after 50 minutes their stand-off saw a gap to go under the posts and convert to give the home side a lead.

Yarnbury offered a threat out wide with quick ball through the backs and swapped wing positions to give tricky Josh Bell more of the attacking ball down the left.

Full-back Jack Brown, playing against his old club, combined well with Bell to relieve the pressure, but Yarnbury spurned another simple penalty in going for the try in the left corner but Bell could not take a difficult pass in the corner and the opportunity was missed.

Yarnbury paid the price for this moments later when Park scored from another attack down the middle of the park and wing forward Andy Major went over from close.Garner converted.

Park then gave away a series of penalties, and Falgate was unstoppable as he went over from close range. The conversion was narrowly missed by Pound, and Yarnbury came up short against the home side.