Harrogate U15 v West Park Leeds

Sunday saw Harrogate U15 take on the County's top team, West Park Leeds at their north Leeds group in Bramhope. With the half-term holiday's impacting on both teams Harrogate pitched up missing 8 of the side that played in the Yorkshire Cup round one match. Like the home side Harrogate also had some players playing out of position so both teams were faced with adapting to the difficult conditions.

But credit has to be given to the lads who took the field for Harrogate as the score does not reflect the nature of the competition or their play throughout the match. The early exchanges between the two teams were fairly even with both teams applying pressure when in defence. Gate began well, dominating the early exchanges at the ruck only for the possession won to be neutralised by the WPL outside backs.

However the feature of recent performances by the visitors, body position in contact, became an area of concern as the ball carrier frequently found themselves isolated and unable to get the ball back to his team mates. Coupled with the excellent jackling for the ball by the WPL loose forwards meant that Harrogate, though frequently able to gain ground and attach the home side successfully, often ended up losing possession to their hosts.

As the WPL success at the tackle area grew so the pressure on the visitors increased and with defence taking centre stage it was only a matter of time before one team cracked. A twin tackle on the WPL inside centre by Harrogate failed to kill the attack and a successful offload to his support allowed the home side to exploit the gaps that were created. Although under pressure from the Harrogate cover defence WPL had enough support and time to keep the ball moving forward and even with a dynamic diving last ditch attempted tackle by Sam Mitchell (showing a noticeable turn of pace!) could not stop WPL going over for the first score. The Try was converted for a 0-7 lead.

The game then settled into a familiar pattern with Harrogate building successful attacks, only to see the ball carrier get isolated and, with poor body position by the ball carrier, WPL were able to frequently turn-over the ball. Turning defence into attack the home side moved the ball well with the Harrogate defence generally holding. But, as with the waves hitting the coast, there is only so much that the Gate defences could cope with and WPL began to find the holes in the visitors defence. Credit has to be given to the Harrogate squad who battled well and earned two tries, one in each half.

The first a short range drive from Patrick Knutson who finished off an attack that showed the potential for the visitors to build attacks if they could retain possession. The second, a solo try by Alistair Cameron-Jones who, showing significant upper body strength handing-off 2 opponents, danced his way through the WPL defence, showing dancing feet that could grace 'Strictly' on a Saturday night, he and weaved his way to score under the posts. With conversions from Harry Fewkes (coming of his death bed to play the match) and Ollie Ward, Harrogate showed the capacity to score good tries.

However the need to tidy up the control of the ball and their capacity to compete for possession in the lose clearly are areas to be worked on in the coming weeks.

Overall the squad played far better than the 14-52 final score line suggests and the squad looks forward to the next encounter with a very good WPL team who are worthy of their table top ranking in the Merit table.