Siddal’s young guns stay on course for National Cup glory
SIDDAL’S UNDER 23 side beat Cumbrians Ellenborough Rangers 32-28 in a topsy-turvy National Cup quarter-final at Chevinedge.
Ellenborough dominated the start of the game and moved the ball wide for Luke Penrice to touch down after five minutes. Owen Hoyles was wide with the conversion, but Rangers were 0-4 in front on the scoreboard.
Siddal were struggling to find any pattern to their play and were thankful to the skill of talisman Josh Greenwood-MacDonald after 23 minutes, whose dummy and run caught out the Cumbrian defenders as he ran in from 30 yards out. James Dodds put the home team 6-4 ahead with the conversion.
Siddal stretched their lead just before half-time when Henry Turner found space out wide.
The conversion was narrowly wide and the first half finished 10-4.
Greenwood MacDonald broke the Cumbrian defence after 45 minutes and fed second rower Josh Milnes. He passed back inside to Greenwood-MacDonald who ran in to score by the side of the posts.
Two minutes later Jake Turner evaded two tackles and passed inside to the supporting full back Kian Cox. Dodds’ conversion took the scores to 20-4.
That lead was extended when Turner grabbed his second and Dodds’ conversion took the scores to 26-4.
Ellenborough hit back with two tries from hard-running forward Craig Dowling, both of which were converted by Hoyles, to reduce the deficit to 2616.
Siddal steadied the ship and Greenwood-MacDonald grabbed his hat-trick score after 72 minutes when he wriggled out of a tackle to touch down and Dodds’ conversion looked to have put Siddal in the clear at 32-16.
Ellenborough refused to lie down and again scored a brace of converted tries in quick succession through Andrew Ostle and Luke Broster, both improved by Hoyles.