Month layoff showed, but Heath then come good!

It was almost a month since the Heath team had played together and that showed in the first 25 minutes with a very rusty performance. That said, Heath had most of the ball and all the territory and rarely left the Malton 22. But, numerous promising attacks came to nothing and with a bit of line fever plus several mistakes from Heath and some excellent defence from the home side, the score remained at nil nil. It was the home side who first structured a period without mistakes and made significant ground, using their well drilled forwards to take the ball 50 metres out of their own half for the first time and up to the Heath 22, where a penalty was given and taken leaving the West Vale side 3 points down. This really spurred on the Malton boys who used the forwards in exactly the same way again and from a 5 metre scrum their number 8 went over for a converted try. Now 10 points down on 26minutes. Heath forwards accepted the challenge and provided quick ball for the backs just inside the Malton half, swift accurate passing created space for Centre Jack Ledgard to break the defensive line and to cleverly skip around the fullback for a try in the corner, converted to 7 points by Hinchliffe. Heath found themselves under great pressure from the aggressive but controlled Malton Pack on their own line but the ball was stolen by Heaths awakened forwards and a quick breakout from Birketts, Hinchliffe the link to Pollard who made it to the 22 and on to Coney- Chrichly with a 50 metres speedy advance he skilfully fed back inside to the prowling Pollard who outpaced the desperate defenders and under the posts to guarantee the 7 points. (Con care of Ezra) 14 points to 10 at Half time to Heath. The second half saw the Heath forwards intensify their commitment to great effect in two ways. One, nullifying the Norton forward driven attack and two, delivering quick, clean ball for the backs who, had proved they were in the mood to run. From deep in defence the Heath backs attacked 50 metres down the right and when halted, the forwards moved in and with two powerful drives sucked in the Malton defence. Birketts then released to the left, down the entire back line to see Adam Parkin go over in the far corner. Perfect Rugby. 19 points to 10. Malton were not giving in and again played to their strength and scored from a 5 metre scrum on the hour. 19 points to 15. Heath finally started to play fluently and soon released half time substitute Jack Sheldrake who finished off with a show of pace and power. 24. 15. Within a few minutes, Brambles caught and gave off the top of a 5 Metre lineout, the ball was swiftly moved out and Sheldrake was fed with precision as he glided through a gap in the middle backs touching down near the posts. Pollard added the conversion to make it 31 points to 15. Heath were now a very efficient and entertaining machine throwing ball from left to right and it was left to Kofi Brobey, with 25 metres and men to beat, to score the final try in the corner. Final score Heath 36. Malton and Norton 15. Although all the six try scoring glory went to the backs today the forwards who were on the back foot had to dig deep and come from behind to gain the upper hand over a very powerful opposition pack and it was this hard fort, forwards turn around that finally gave the ammunition the classy backs needed.