Wath Snatch Win

A gale force wind influenced the game for a second successive Saturday when Wath travelled to play West Park Leeds. A victory looked there for the taking as the Wath scrum won the ball against the head and passed the ball to winger, Steve Mason, who broke through several tackles to score a try out wide. The conversion, directly into the wind, fell short but the visitors had a 0-5 lead.

Unfortunately, Wath were unable to build on early dominance as the home team defended resolutely and forced the Wath team into mistakes that gave away possession. Twice in the remainder of the half WPL capitalised on these errors and scored two converted tries to take a healthy 14- 5 lead into the break.

Wath’s ball retention did not improve and this, and some weak defence, allowed WPL to extend their lead to 19- 5. Despite making several interchanges, including semi-retired Richard Hill, Wath could not build any pressure and looked like they were heading for defeat.

However, Wath did stick to their task and finally began to build some pressure. A yellow card for a deliberate knock on by WPL also fuelled Wath’s efforts to get back into the game, but only 10 minutes remained.

From a 5 metre line out Wath took the ball cleanly and drove over the line with Hill emerging from the bottom of the pile as the try scorer. An excellent conversion by Jack Whitlam made the score 19- 12. Wath now had some momentum and went straight back onto the attack. A series of line outs and scrums resulted in Hill being driven over the line to score a second try. An even more difficult conversion into a cross wind was successful and Wath had pulled back level at 19-19.

Into injury time, an inventive kick and follow up by skipper, Joe Earp, trapped the home team on their own line in front of their vociferous supporters. More pressure; a deft pass by Luke Stead to winger Rory Anderson silenced the crowd with a try in the corner. A win 19-24 win for Wath was secured as the restart was cleared.

Wath had shown great spirit to snatch a win but will face a stern test next week at home to league leaders, Pontefract. Kick off at the earlier time of 2.15.

Steve Corns