Wharfedale 29, Barking 3

A sparkling opening and a powerful last-quarter finish were sufficient to give Wharfedale a comprehensive win against a disappointingly plodding Barking yesterday in SSE National League One.

A victory, after four successive single-score defeats, with its bonus point allows the Greens to exchange league places with their opponents and so lifts the Yorkshire side out of the relegation bottom three.

No-one in the Dales will mind that their side made relatively heavy weather of the middle period of the match in which they dominated territory and played throughout with attacking intent.

The much-needed win was sufficient. The nerves settled. The relief palpable.

Centre Tom Davidson scored a finely-worked try after only two minutes with a defence-splitting pass from Aaron Myers and added a penalty to his own conversion to give the Greens a 10-0 platform after only eight minutes.

And although Wharfedale, showing an aggressive confidence lacking in recent weeks, threatened to overwhelm the visitors, poor midfield final distribution in sight of the posts frittered away three golden opportunities.

With the visitors condemned to perpetual defence with little opportunity or capacity for attack, fly half Chris Ashton’s penalty was a lone Barking contribution to a half that petered out disappointingly, leaving Wharfedale 10-3 leaders at the break.

A similar fallow period followed the resumption but the Greens’ continued territorial dominance, with excellent forward contributions from Ben Sowrey, Myers and Joe Quinn, eventually produced the killer touch with three tries in the final quarter.

Frustration at further near misses eased when returning captain Rob Baldwin crashed over from a short tap penalty for Davidson’s excellent kicking to add a touchline conversion.

A combination of growing self-belief in the home side and a tiring Barking defence resulted in full back Dan Hart being on the receiving end of a further Myers expertly-timed pass to extend the lead to winning proportions.

And with minutes remaining, more confident waves of flowing attack produced a try for Luke Gray, with Davidson, as in the opening score, responsible for both the break and the final conversion.

With the necessity for victory so paramount, the bonus point went virtually unnoticed.