Dinnington 10, Bradford Salem 3

Bradford Salem slipped to their seventh successive defeat, but, encouragingly, they didn't go down without a fight in yesterday's Yorkshire Division One clash.

Playing up the slope in the first half, Salem soon found themselves under pressure and went behind 10-0 in the opening quarter after conceding two early tries.

In fact, things could have been much worse had the Dinnington kicker not missed two conversions and two penalty attempts.

Salem were then reduced to 13 men after North Yorkshire and Cleveland Society referee Mike Ramsden sent scrum half Ian Woodwiss and hooker Sean Fields to the sin-bin for technical offences.

To their credit, Salem dug deep and put together their best passages of play with excellent support play from the forwards retaining them possession, despite being two men down.

In fact, the Bradford side even went close to scoring, experienced centre Steve McManus just failing to gather an attempted interception in midfield.

Although back to a full complement, Salem were under increasing pressure in the scrums.

Second row Damien Pearson agravated a recent injury and was replaced by veteran New Zealander Dean McNicholl early in the second half, and the visitors were further disrupted when centre Sean Thomas was forced to leave the field with a head injury, to be replaced by debutant Tom Barnes, formerly of West Leeds.

Despite these enforced changes, Salem reduced the arrears to 10-3 courtesy of a penalty from fly half Will Rae after the home side were caught offside.

Then, in the dying minutes, Salem looked like they would snatch an honourable draw as they were camped on the Dinnington line with every chance that the referee would award a penalty try for persistent infringements.

Unfortunately, however, panic set into the Salem ranks and the opportunity was lost.