Yorkshire Division One: Bradford Salem 5 Yarnbury 20

YARNBURY, still fighting for survival, deservedly took the spoils at Shay Lane as they took full advantage of Salem's inability to keep possession.

The home side found themselves defending in their own half for most of the opening 20 minutes, and only some shuddering tackles from centre Conor Wood kept the visitors at bay.

Having weathered the storm, Salem fly half Harry Hall made an excellent break, only for his attempted offload to go loose.

This allowed Yarnbury to launch a counter-attack, and their fly half and man of the match Kieran Davies found himself with a mismatch and danced round prop John Bradbury and second-rower Abhishek Brar to score a fine individual try that improved by full back Daniel Pound to give the Horsforth side a 7-0 lead.

However, Salem responded positively and, after working their way into their opponents' 22, some swift handling in the backs looked like it would create a try on the right. However, they were denied by a deliberate knock-on which was unfortunately missed by referee Mike Dickinson.

Things then went from bad to worse for Salem as they gave away a succession of penalties, allowing Davies to kick two long-range penalties for a 13-0 advantage at the break.

Although Salem continued to squander possession in the second half, some telling runs from Canadian No 8 Chad Bain were beginning to take their toll.

However, the turning point came after 55 minutes when a try-scoring pass from Salem's replacement fly half Matt Booth was intercepted by Pound, and the full back raced 80 metres to score a try that he improved himself increase his side's lead to 20 unanswered points.

Salem had chances to narrow the gap in the final quarter but their cause wasn't helped when lock John Morrell was sin-binned for going into a ruck from the side.

To their credit, Salem managed to finish on a positive note as replacement winger Ryan Smith scored in injury time.