Wharfedale 23, Rosslyn Park 30

This was a match which made for very dispiriting viewing.

The Greens’ late second half revival saved them from major embarrassment but it couldn’t disguise a limp performance.

For the third successive home game Wharfedale were reduced to scrabbling around in the dying stages for the meagre compensation of a losing bonus point.

And this once more in a match in which at half-time they looked to have the measure of their opponents.

The ease with which sides have brushed aside the Greens’ challenge after the break has become startlingly familiar.

Five successive defeats – three of them at home – and seven losses in the last eight matches speaks all too clearly of a side struggling to find answers to their problems.

Their form has melted as rapidly as the snow which disappeared from The Avenue pitch after a quick thaw and allowed a match at risk in midweek to go ahead in perfect rugby conditions.

Once again Wharfedale flattered to deceive.

For the opening half an hour things looked promising enough right from the decisive opening salvo of a long Tom Davidson drop goal.

A trading of penalties, and hooker Ian Larkin’s neat supporting finish for a try prefaced by telling breaks by Dan Solomi and Phil Woodhead had the Greens 13-3 ahead.

But the Greens’ all-to-familiar failure to hold a lead, let alone build on one, allowed visiting No 8 Mark Lock to make a rampaging touchline run through fragile tackling to score in the corner.

Fly-half Ross Laidlaw landed a soaring conversion as Park closed to within three points at the end of the half.

After the break they romped ahead.

They established a deserved 30-7 lead with just minutes to play.

These days the intricacies of modern rugby hardly allow a single player to beat a side on his own.

But on Saturday John Rudd came pretty near to doing so.

The Park winger may have been built like a rangy lock forward but he possessed genuine destructive pace, an appetite for running through tackles and an eager eye for exploiting space.

He may have scored merely his team's third and final try but his powerful running spread-eagled an increasingly hesitant defence and regularly threatened further scores.

But with the visitors' growing confidence manifest in every move Rudd was not alone in finding the crucial switches of direction and telling angles of running which found the home defence frequently falling off their tackles.

The south London side collected their other points while No 8 Talite Vaioleti languished in the bin for a deliberate knock on some saw as a possible attempt at interception.

His departure proved costly.

By the time he returned Park had added ten points with a converted try by a lock Adam Gates and a further Laidlaw penalty.

With time running out and their chances of gaining anything from the match increasingly remote, Wharfedale finally roused themselves.

From virtually their only foothold near the line in the whole match, efficient play in the corner secured a driven line-out try from Solomi in the corner.

Davidson converted handsomely from the touch-line and three minutes later an even more towering 45-yard penalty secured the bonus point for his struggling side.

But this final flourish only highlighted the bleak paucity of most of the Greens' play throughout a tightly-contested but moderate contest.

Once twice did they flicker briefly into authentic attacking life.

Firstly early on prior to their first-half try, when some gorgeous sweeping back-play and crisp off-loading among the pack in one corner ended with Simon Horsfall being denied a try in the other by a supposed forward pass.

A then, much later, with the arrival of young fly-half Tom Barrett, back from lengthy early season injury, on for lively debutant winger James Druce.

Barrett's crisper distribution sparked a short period of livelier handling attack before things subsided to pedestrian pace once more.

So Wharfedale remain very much struck in a rut, lacking the cutting edge to make some honest effort pay.

But also without the passion or mental cohesion to turn positions to their advantage let alone the concerted aggression needed to seize a game by the scruff of the neck and make it theirs.

Let's hope the intensity of next weeks' true local derby at Otley can rekindle the spirit, desire and the form to turn the tide.

WHAREDALE: A Whaites; J Druce (T Barrett 58), C Malherbe, A Hodgson, S Horsfall; T Davidson, P Woodhead; C Steel, I Larkin (S Graham 65), B Hooper (M Chivers69); R Brown (D Hughes 54) A Allen, R Baldwin (R Rhodes70), D Salomi, T Vaioleti.

ROSSLYN PARK: N Edwards: J Strong, C Gower, C Lewis, J Rudd; R Laidlaw, M Baxter; M Lilley, B Gotting, W Collier; S Pape, A Gates; J Burton, J Barratt, M Lock

REFEREE: Andy Taylorson (RFU)