Old Otliensians 57 Stocksbridge 37

OLD Otliensians and relegated Stocksbridge produced an exciting contest in the spring sunshine in which the lead changed several times.

From the kick-off the visitors used their strong runners to take play up to the home line. The hosts strayed offside and a forward drive produced a try for Stocksbridge.

With several regular players on the injured list, it took the home side time to settle, but when the ball was moved wide, half backs Lewis Robinson and Will Cooper put centres Josh Howarth and Luke Cowdell away up the right.

A looped overhead pass found winger Connor Paley and he rounded the cover to score a try which Connor Bateman converted.

After eventually regaining possession, the visitors then made the mistake of kicking the ball deep into the hands of Bateman who set of on one of his weaving runs to score under the posts. He converted to move the score to 14-5 after 15 minutes.

With ‘Ensians perhaps relaxing with this modest lead, the visitors moved play into the home 22 with some strong running and offloading. Good support play saw them score two well-worked tries to take a 15-14 lead.

This stirred the hosts into action and from broken play, Cowdell jinked his way through to score. Bateman converted as Otliensians took the lead 21-15.

The home side was holding its own in the scrums through the front row of Joel Wakeford, Alex Burnett and Paddy Phipps, but their line-out struggled occasionally against the well-drilled Stocksbridge side.

Once more the visitors gained possession and re-cycled the ball well to run in another to reduce the lead to one point.

It was now home fly half Will Cooper’s chance to slice through for a fine try which Bateman converted to move the score to 28-20.

The see-saw encounter continued with the visitors taking advantage of some indifferent defence to run in a good try, taking the score to 28-27 at the break.

With former skipper Nathan Rogers and forward John Offer coming off the bench, the hosts started confidently and quickly ran in two tries through Cowdell and Bateman. Bateman’s accuracy with the boot continued with one conversion to stretch the lead to 40- 27 after 48 minutes.

Not to be outdone, the visitors responded with good interplay between forwards and backs to narrow the lead to 40-32.

Josh Howarth went over at short range which, with Bateman’s conversion, extended the lead to 47-32.

Bateman followed this with a penalty after 71 minutes to bring up the half century and soon after he again evaded the cover to score his hat-trick. It took his individual points tally to 32 as he added seven conversions and a penalty to his tries.

Despite tiring, Stocksbridge had the last word when they created a try in the closing minutes which was just reward for their efforts.