Skipton 0 Sheffield Medicals 34

Skipton’s first team squad was reduced to 17 players through injury and unavailability for Saturday’s Yorkshire Two home game.

Straight from the kick-off Sheffield scored. Skipton failed to claim possession and from the kindest of bounces one of the Sheffield forwards took the ball over the Skipton try line. The conversion made it 7-0.

Skipton fell further behind three minutes later when Sheffield scored a second converted try to stretch their lead to 14-0.

There was a further injury blow for Skipton after ten minutes when prop Chris Sheehan had to retire with a back problem to be replaced by youngster Simon Bygrave.

Skipton pulled themselves together and started to make a game of it, but Sheffield continued to do all the scoring.

They converted two penalties from three attempts before running in a third try in injury time to extend their lead to 27-0.

It took Sheffield ten minutes into the second half to score their fourth try of the game with the conversion succeeding.

The whole Skipton side kept battling and in the final 15 minutes they could have scored but just failed to get past the Sheffield defences.

Throughout all the match Skipton only had one kickable penalty which captain Darren Howson struck wide.

Overall, once again, this young Skipton side never gave in and Jimmy Boynton, Rick Wilsher and Tom Keady were outstanding in the pack, whilst Dave Wilkinson in his last game before moving to London, gave a fine performance in the backs ably supported by Miff Smith and Andy Mclean.