Match Report from Jack De'Ath
The centurions first game of the season saw them host Yarnbury 3s at Stacks field. With RBC spending the week pulling his men out the pub, including daily visits to Friends of ham to bully George Dale making a reappearance, the centurions fielded a strong squad. The warm up got off to a very relaxed start, this could be due to the skipper being late due to a flower show commitment pre game.
The first period of the game followed in the same manner with Ilkley unable to get out of their own half, fortunately Jack DeAth did his best to avoid a tackle from Yarnburys number 8, charging towards him off the scrum and managed to intercept the ball with 50m left to the try line 5-0 Centurions. Unfortunately Yarnburys dominance finally paid off with two well worked tries to take them to 14-5 ahead.
This woke the Centurions up and some well worked phase play bought the boys up into Yarnburys 22, an unfortunate injury to Ben Rawnsley bought the game to a halt, thankfully not as serious as first thought. A 5m lineout on Yarnburys line was lost but a game of pinball between the 2 sets of backs and somehow Spike managed to dot the ball over the try line, conversion successful 12-14 at half time.
Eloquent words as ever from the skipper at halftime saw The Centurions dominate the 2nd half, strong call from all the forwards but notably Ollie Dennis, Josh Ware and Nick Roberts set a platform for the backs to exploit space left by tiring Yarnbury.
The forwards got their reward, from an Ilkley put in on the Yarnbury 5m line, they managed to lose the scrum against the head but a second drive when Yarnbury thought they had won it and it was back on Ilkley side George Dale picked up and dotted over, conversation successful 19-14.
Despite the changes in the front five, mainly Will Vaughan going down with a calf injury (presumably to get off the pitch away from Josh Wares singing) the forwards dominance continued. Two Ilkley tries followed to round off a well worked win, the first from a sliced cross field kick from Jack DeAth which thankfully landed in Cam Dennis arms for a clear run to score. 26-14, the second saw the ball again appear in Spikes arms for another opportunistic try 33-14, job done. Yarnbury pushed for a consolation try but to no avail.
The game finished when Max Franks received the ball back off his own line out throw with a clear run to the try line decided enough was enough and chose to kick the ball into touch. A rusty start to the game but heart and desire won the day. 5 point win to kick off the centurions season.
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