Skipton 5 Hullensians 53

These are tough, tough times for Skipton.

Half a dozen players moving on to pastures new and half a dozen players injured in the stands leaves a team struggling to compete at Yorkshire Two level.

The effort and commitment cannot be faulted, however but against street-wise old pros, the basics have to be better.

If the opposition kick long, it’s time to hoof the ball off the park, then the forwards can have a breather by trotting to the line-out and not chasing 50 yards up and down again and again.

Also when taking into contact, it must be ensured that the ball comes back, rather than being coughed up or stripped, which gives it away and the chasing starts all over again.

These are hard lessons but they have to be learnt for the club to progress.

Hullensians scored at regular intervals to go 17-0 up after 22 minutes but seven minutes later there was a highlight for the Reds.

Hard driving from the forwards down the middle of the park led to the ball being spun wide quickly, resulting in a Sonny Bill Williams-esque offload from Jimmy Boynton to Andy Maclean, who touched down in the corner to make it 17-5.

In the third minute of injury time (Skipton don’t know where that came from), the Hullensians No 4 Adam Atkinson crashed over for a converted try.

This shaven-headed individual stretched the rules from start to finish, and a harsher referee would have given him ten-minute breaks.

The second half started badly for Skipton by carrying on in the same vein, resulting in plenty more scores for Hullensians, whose classy half-backs ran the game.

Stand-out home player was centre Jonny Moore, who made ground every time he touched the ball.

He runs great angles from deep and always bursts through the first tackle, making at least the gain line, and he deserved a score.

Another highlight was the first-team debut of the latest scrum half off the Barraclough production line, Stuart.

In the next couple of weeks, Anti-podean cavalry arrives in the shape of a prop and a centre.