Old Crossleyans appoint Greaves to assist Spence
Old Crossleyans have appointed former Bradford & Bingley stalwart Ben Greaves as player-assistant coach to Neil Spence. The Broomfield club have also swooped to sign prop Reuben Pollard from Calderdale neighbours Old Rishworthians.
Both new signings made their debuts in a comfortable 40-12 warm-up success against Bolton at Broomfield last Saturday.
Crocs lock Kev McGill organsed the fixture against a Bolton side for whom he played prior to arriving in Halifax.
Crocs, who fielded a side including new faces and established players, took an early 7-0 lead before the visitors clawed back to level.
After that it was one-way traffic as the hosts pulled out a 33-7 advantage before an unconverted try saw Boton bring it back to 33-12.
However, Crocs had the final say in a game where they played some enterprising open rugby but struggled up front due to the lack of a strong forward division. Heath took many positives from a victory over hosts Aldwinians in their first pre-season game.
Several players were still missing for a match of four 20 minute periods.
Mick Gleeson and Ezra Hinchliffe, a new half back pairing, made their mark in a scoreless first quarter. Winger Rob Thackray had a couple of surging runs and Matt Cook grew in confidence at fullback and began to put in a good kicking game. At the end of the first period the score was 0-0.
Heath defended strongly and then took the lead through Jack Sheldrake, converted by Hinchliffe.
No 8 Darren Neilly scored the visitors’ second try, which was again converted,and back rower Alex Cust increased Heath’s lead with 10 minutes left.
The visitors concede two tries in the last few minutes but by then the game was won by then.
Heath were hosting Old Crosseleyans last night. ’They then have a first round Yorkshire Shield match at home to Malton and Norton on August 30 before the league opener the following Saturday against promoted Hullensians at North Dean. Old Brodleians’ new coaching team of Matt Smith and Danny Monk were pleased with a good all round performance in a 35-24 friendly success over Littleborough.
Brods were first to register with Nathan Scott touching down. Danny Wood converting.
Littlebrough scored down the hill following a strong for- ward drive to narrow the gap to 7-5.
The visitors followed this up with a further score to take the lead 10-7. However, Brods struck back with excellent interplay in the backs and Phil Town showed pace to break clear on the right and touch down between the posts and provide Wood with an easy conversion to make it 14-10.
A strong final 20 minutes saw Calub Grimsdale, Scott and Rob Jennings secure well worked tries. Park Tennis Club have won the Calderdale League Men’s doubles title for the first time since 1979.
Two sets of fixtures took place last week to try to squeeze all the matches in before the nights become too dark.
Park went into the first of these matches against second placed Queens A 3.5 points clear with four points up for grabs.
Sean Colclough and Jimmy Finnigan got things off to a winning start beating the Queens second pair.
Andy Smith came in to replace the unavailable Adrian Kelly, and partnering Paul Hull lost to Queens’ first pair.
The matches were played in the rain and with the light failing a halt was called to proceedings, leaving the match drawn and the points shared.
It was a disappointing way to finish the tie but it guaranteed Park took a 3.5 points lead into the final fixture of the season.
Needing only one point in the home clash with Marsden, Jimmy Finnigan and Sean Colclough again led the way.
Chris Williams came back in and partnered Paul Hull to a 5-1 lead in the first set when rain caused the courts to become slippy and the match was abandoned.
This meant the match was classed as a winning draw by virtue of winning the one completed rubber with the points allocated 2.5-1.5 and Park could start to celebrate.