Bradford Salem 10, Castleford 34

Bradford Salem’s dreadful run of results in 2010 continued after a 34-10 defeat at the hands of Castleford at Shay Lane yesterday in Yorkshire Division One.

Still missing several key players through unavailability and injury, Salem suffered a further setback when Kiwi winger Kris Whata had to withdraw because of an ankle injury sustained in the previous week's game at York.

Despite having to reshuffle their back line, the Heaton side were on top in early stages.

They were awarded two penalties in kickable positions but skipper Kris Falwasser opted to go for touch instead.

However, his decisions were vindicated when flanker Jamie Booth drove over in the corner and a magnificent touchline conversion into the wind from full back Jonathan Davies gave the home side a 7-0 lead.

Castleford hit back with a converted try to level the scores, and their bigger pack was beginning to get on top in the scrums.

Nevertheless, after Salem squandered a huge overlap on the right, Castleford were caught offside and Davies kicked the resultant penalty to take his side into a 10-7 lead at half-time.

Despite coming under increasing pressure, Salem were still very much in the hunt.

However, the turning point was when Jonathan Davies retaliated after he was blatantly late tackled and he was sent to the sin-bin.

While down to 14 men, the Bradford side conceded a converted try and two penalties to go 20-10 behind.

Castleford scored a further converted try after excellent forward support play to extend their lead to 27-10 then, cruelly, in the last play of the game, a try-scoring pass by Falwasser was intercepted by Castleford fly half Carl Paterson, who strolled beneath the sticks for a try he converted himself to seal a rather flattering 34-10 victory.