RUGBY LIONS 22 Otley 7

WITH the scoreline giving the impression of a fairly heavy defeat it must be pointed out that it was late in the game before Rugby were able to be sure of victory and Otley can feel that their performance augurs well for the remaining matches.

With Simon Hawkins suffering injuries to a knee and ankle during last week's county game and fellow fly-half Anthony Cadman collecting a dead leg at Rotherham it was the turn of centre Wayne Hartley, having seen team-mate Chris Thornton dragged into midfield over the last few weeks, to find himself playing out of position.

It had been the intention to re-unite the successful partnership of Ian Carroll and Steve Hudson, which would have provided a hefty second row, but the former had not recovered from a broken nose sustained at Newbury. However, Hudson, who only returned to playing late last October, did enough to challenge for a regular first team spot and with Lafaele Filipo well on the way to recovery Cross Green may well soon be seeing the turn-out of a big pack.

Pushing hard to regain the big time it was essential to Rugby that they were to be victorious but they were not to have things their own way. Otley handled the set-scrums admirably and were secure on their own throw-in but after 11-minutes centre Te'o Vega was put through by his partner to put the Lions in front.

Otley struck back immediately and gained a penalty on the home 22 where a quick tap saw Jonathan Burke barge through to hand on to Andy Brown and two passes later Peter Rutledge was ready to go over but was flattened before he could gather the ball. There were no objections when the referee awarded a penalty try and the full-back took full retribution with the conversion.

The lead was not to last for after full-back Jim Quantrill had hit the upright with a penalty attempt the ball was carried over for a five metre scrum and Rugby got sufficient push on for scrum-half David Bishop to scamper over.

This was the score at half-time and Otley were handling the pressure with assurance until the 68th minute until, after holding out a series of forward drives, they were unable to fill the defensive gaps and fly-half Dean Morgan slipped through to touch down, Quantrill converting.

It was probably exhaustion which left Otley short of defenders in the last minute when veteran Eddie Saunders found himself unmarked but even so he was pushed out to the corner.

Having won 22-3 at Cross Green promotion contenders Rugby had been looking for an easier victory and it is to the credit of all 19 Otley players that they were made to fight hard.

Otley Saracens 13

Sheffield 12

In the earlier fixture at Sheffield Saracens had to come from behind and they did again to complete the double. After all the rain conditions were tricky and there were numerous handling errors with both sides defending strongly.

Saracens made the early running but tended to kick possession away and the first time the visitors gained a position in the Otley 22 they took the lead diving on a loose ball which was lost on the line and added the conversion.

Saracens hit back and after a lot of pressure Dave Boreham joined the line from full-back to cross in the corner to make it 5-7 at half-time.

Saracens stepped up the pace in the second-half but Sheffield soaked up a lot of pressure to keep their line intact. Chris Quinn was just wide with a penalty but when the visitors infringed again shortly after he made no mistake to give Saracens the lead.

Otley continued to press but wrong options and good defence kept the lead to a single point and with six minutes to go a Saracens' attack broke down and Sheffield broke out to take play to the other end.

The visitors won the resulting line-out to drive over and regain the lead.

In a grandstand finish Saracens hammered at the line down the right before switching left and Mike Feeley made the half breask to feed Simon Rhodes who powered over in the corner to clinch victory.

Saracens showed a lot of spirit to fight back when things were not going right and they were well led by acting skipper John Hillier-Hall who was playing in the second row with Richard Smith and Steve Hudson in the first team.

Otley Viscounts 20

Ripon. 14

Viscounts kept up their recent good form to extend their unbeaten run to five games in an entertaining contest with Ripon. With the pack playing well to win good ball Jason Bell scored two tries following powerful runs and Nick Girling also crossed wide out.

A converted try by Ripon made it 15-7 at half-time.

They scored again in the second-half but Ian Kennedy joined the line from full-back to score in the corner and seal victory.

Alistair Scott-Somers had a good game at fly-half and had a hand in most of the tries.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.