Another good win on the road

Team:

1. Dance   2. Puttick   3. Morley   4. Owen

5. Hunter   6. Wilby 7. Dawes 8. Barnes

9. Cole 10. Reynolds 11. Bruce 12 Malik 13 Mellor 14 Bull 15 Harriott-Brown

Replacements: Kerr, Webb, Whitworth

Another good win on the road

After overnight snow and freezing temperatures, Ilkely’s pitch was passed fit after an 11am inspection. With Coach Baxter, unavailable through illness and Spud Taylor travelling with the 3rds, the match report is a little brief (particularly for the 1st period) due to involvement with other tasks. The match promised to be a tight affair, with the home match being so close earlier in the season.

Early pressure came from the well organised Ilkley pack, Heath defended well and cleared a series of early attacks from their enthusiastic forwards. Its soon became clear that this was to be the focus of Ilkely’s game plan, with their backs being brought into the game on rare occasions, despite having a very adept kicker at fly half.  Harriott-Brown was called into action several times to secure high kicks and return via his characteristic sprints forward. Heaths persistence, forced a penalty in the ruck and Cole decided to take the points. 0-3

With Ilkley restarting, Heath lost Hunter to a back injury in the next breakdown. Kerr replaced him moving to Prop. Heath had another great chance to score when Harriot-Brown once again chased a through ball, kicking away from the full back but the ball was touched down for a 22 drop out.

Ilkely began to regain the upper hand and Heath had to defend their line for several minutes, from one of these drives, Dance was unfortunate to be yellow carded under the new high tackle guidelines. Ilkely chose to take the scrum, but Heath held strong and pushed back, allowing Cole to clear with a kick to half way.

The ref blew for Half Time.

Heath would be playing slightly uphill in the 2nd half but without the setting sun in their eyes.

Shortly after the restart, Webb came on for Bull and Dance returned from the Sin Bin. Heath had weathered the storm without conceding. The forwards made strong drives through Dance, Morley and Puttick, setting up several attacking runs for the backs. They pinned Ilkely back on their line and won a 5m scrum when held up over the line. From the scrum the ball was excellently controlled at the back by Barnes who then collected and touched down for an opening try out wide. 0-8

The restart failed to travel 10 m and Webb was unlucky to knock on when trying to collect for what would have been a clear run to the line. The scrum was again won by Heath, Ilkely themselves then fell foul of the high tackle and lost a man for 10 minutes. Heath were keen to come out of this period with at least another score. Heath forced a turnover when an Ilkley back was held up in the tackle and from the resultant set piece the ball was spread wide through Owen, to the unmarked Wilby who galloped through for another try. The difficult conversion was again unsuccessful 0-13

Ilkely were keen to try and get points on the board and duly slotted over a penalty, they were awarded in front of the posts. Dawes was replaced by Whitworth. 3-13

Again, Ilkley drove forward through their pack who did not seem to be tiring, they forced another penalty, and with only 10 minutes remaining we expected either a kick to the line or a drive. However, they gave an idea of their mindset by choosing to take the 3 instead, Heaths forwards were buoyed by this, taking it as an sign that they had the upper hand defensively. 6-13

Hunter returned for Dance for the final few minutes but Heath held strong and kept the ball in the Ilkely half, with the ref blowing for time a great performance was acknowledge by Cole.

With Heath now part way through 3 tough matches, it’s on to Vandals next week for hopefully another fine performance