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Pocklington 32 Skipton 17

The Reds finished the Old Year with a big win (52-7 against Ripon) but were brought down to size in the New Year with a poor display away at Pocklington.

This was a significant game in respect of league placings because, although Skipton remain second in the table and Pocklington third, Skipton's comfortable look as promotion prospects which they have held all season is now being eroded. Bearing in mind that Skipton had already beaten Pock twice this season, once in the league and once in the cup, then clearly this was a poor Reds display.

Skipton started strongly on Saturday and were soon 10-3 in the lead from tries by Adam Oldfield and winger Mark Battle.

This augered well because Skipton often start slowly after a long coach journey but on Saturday they started looking sharp.

But then they went off the boil and as Pocklington increased the pressure the Reds became sloppy, missing tackles, dropping passes and this enabled the home team to build up a 27-10 lead by half-time.

This increased to 32-10 immediately upon the re-start. But then Skipton, as strangely as having gone off the boil, got back into gear and whilst never likely to pull back the deficit they deserved to improve the score to 32-17.

The score came from a penalty try when the forcefull Reds pack were powering towards the line and were illegally collapsed.

With Darren Howson adding the conversion they gained the maximum seven points.

Stout Pocklington defence ensured that this was the only real threat to their lead.

On the plus side for Skipton, it was good to see young prop Ryan Binner again revelling in first team rugby when he came on as a second half substitute and it was good to see speedy winger Liam Ray back in action after two months off with injury.

It was also good that Skipton 2nds had a notable win over higher placed opposition in beating Bradford & Bingley 3rds by 27 -10 because sterling performances in this game from the likes of Gavin Petterd, Richard Curtin, Lee Shaw and Iain Sneddon means they are laying claim to a return to the first team and the selectors have plenty of thinking to do.

Skipton 3rds also did well holding Wharfedale 5ths to a 12-12 draw.

6:16pm Monday 7th January 2008

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