Harrogate 32 - Hull Ionians 17

Hull came into this game with a reputation for powerful forward play but it was Harrogate who showed a strength and commitment typified by man of the match James McCormack who with his forward team mates were able to disrupt the opponents game plan. The first score demonstrated the Harrogate resolve when a Hull move was held up and the ball stolen and quickly fed out to Noel Minikin who outpaced the defenders to score with Joe Rowntree converting. An exchange of penalty kicks took the score to 10-3 before an increasingly desperate Hull pack strayed offside too often and had a player sin binned. With a player down Harrogate drove the ball over the line but an unsighted official could not award the try. Hull were having to commit players to prevent being driven over and at that point Harrogate fed the ball out to the backs who showed good hands with a wet ball to give Keiron Fleming the space to round his opposite number and touchdown.
Harrogate dominated the early part of the second half and after winning a clean line out ball the backs showed skillful passing and miss moves to allow Keiron Fleming the space to bag his second try. Hull then had their best spell of play and good close passing saw them camped in the Harrogate half and a powerful break by the loose forward saw them reduce the deficit to 20-10. Hull continued to push for the score that would give them at least a losing bonus point when they lost control of the ball and Luke Roberts pounced and raced 75 metres to stretch the lead to 25-10. Harrogate resumed their dominance and the game was put out of reach when Jon Hicks collected a quickly taken tap penalty and pushing defenders away powered over with Joe Rowntree converting to make the score 32-10. Hull to their credit did not fold and it was a clever chip by their best player who created the final score of the game to make the score 32-17.