Rishworthians gain ugly win

OLD Rishworthians can look back on this Yorkshire One win by 17-14 at Bradford Salem as an “ugly” victory.

In heavy conditions, after an errorstrewn first half, they took the spoils with a determined defence pinning Salem in their own half and coming from behind to gain the win.

Both sides tried to run the ball and the visitors might have been better to have kept the play tight.

Rishworthians dropped the greasy ball too many times in the first half and were made to pay. One dropped ball in midfield brought a score as Salem were quick to pick up and run to the line for a converted try.

Rishworthians hit back keeping play tighter, prop Harry Whitfield was held up over the line as was wing Anthony Shoesmith.

From the scrum they got a pushover try touched down by No8 Gerard Rollings.

Scrum half Ed Cockroft’s conversion levelled the scores and he was then successful with a 45 metre penalty kick.

Salem hit back though finding space on Rishworthians’ right flank to run in a simple converted try.

Trailing 14–10, the visitors were soon ahead in the second half when Shoesmith was high-tackled as he crossed the line and the referee awarded a penalty try.

From then Rishworthians played a containing game with some aggressive defence and, while Salem gained plenty of possession, they could do nothing with it and a wall of defence from the visitors kept them pinned down in their own half for the rest of the game. ■■England will scrummage against Georgia this week with Dylan Hartley outlining the consequences if they fail to view the sessions as anything other than the equivalent of a Test match.

The Georgians will spend the Tuesday and Wednesday of the first fallow week of the NatWest 6 Nations providing Eddie Jones’ pack with an examination of their set-piece expertise.

A similar event was staged against Wales in Bristol before the 2017 autumn series and it was deemed a success, leading to Jones setting up a similar scenario against one of the game’s most accomplished scrummaging nations.

“Every scrum has to be intense otherwise you get folded up like a travel map stuffed in your back pocket,” captain and hooker Hartley said.

“I’m looking forward to it. It will be a really useful tool and I’m sure they will take something from it as well.

“We’re always looking to improve our scrum. It has been going well for us. They are good players who play Top 14, good operators.

“You think that by mixing it up and training against someone different we will find something out about ourselves and we will learn.

“If I scrum against Jamie George, Alec Hepburn and Harry Williams they know what we are trying to do, we know what they are trying to do and we end up negating each other.”