West Park 24 Yarnbury 35

Yarnbury were crowned as Yorkshire Two champions after defeating their near neighbours at The Sycamores on Saturday.

The afternoon didn’t start well for Yarnbury when they were robbed at the kick off and West Park attacked through their No.8 and captain John Fletcher. When he was halted the ball was recycled for centre Jordan Bradley to score an unconverted try.

Yarnbury responded to the setback with a well-worked move down the left which saw winger Elis Gomersall turn the defence inside out before scoring out wide.

West Park stand-off Jake Dux-bury was using the wind to test the Yarnbury defence with a string of high kicks.

The tactic paid off when a moment of indecision in the defence resulted in scrum half Marcus Barnett finding space to score a try which Duxbury con-verted.

The home side were dominant even though the Yarnbury pack were getting to grips with the game.

This was underlined when Joe Bennett broke through for a try which unsighted referee Hanson Haigh awarded on the advice of his touch judge. Paterson’s magni-ficent conversion from a wide angle levelled the scores.

Park seemed determined to ruin Yarnbury’s day and a fine indiv-idual try from Duxbury saw him outstrip full back Jarrod Huss to score.

Bob Hood knew he had to stem the tide. The Yarnbury coach made a number of changes with captain Oliver Cashman reverting to scrum half and Nathan Benton switching to full back. In the pack, Tom Gilcrist’s pace was utilised at openside flanker with young Chris Doyle coming on at hooker for the second half.

Yarnbury knew they were in for an important 40 minutes with the league title at stake, while their neighbours were determined to try and preserve their unbeaten home record.

With the wind behind them, Yarnbury created early pressure and a penalty from Paterson gave them encouragement.

Good work from centre Jason Avison and Gilcrist created the space for winger Alex Clark to force his way over the line to give his side the lead. Paterson’s conversion attempt went just the wrong side of the posts.

A similar attack down the right saw hooker Doyle score with a 20-metre run for the line after three forward drives.

Yarnbury had their tails up and it was fitting that skipper Cashman should be the man who scored the bonus point try which guaranteed that his side would finish a point clear of Hullensians in the title race.

West Park were not giving up and full back Marcus Bradley chased a kick through to score a consolation try under the posts which Duxbury converted.

Paterson closed out the game with a late penalty to trigger Yarnbury’s celebration and secure the local bragging rights.

It crowned a season that Yarnbury’s players and officials will never forget.