ILKLEY'S head of rugby Rhys Morgan felt that the referee did them no favours in their 34-19 defeat at North Premier leaders Billingham last Saturday.

"I had a word with the referee's assessor afterwards and I felt that the referee hadn't policed the breakdown area and the contact area well at all, and he agreed with me," said Morgan.

"It took us a while to get used to their 4G pitch, which we did after we went down 5-0 behind, but I don't think that it was a fair result.

"They scored two tries when we were down to 14 men (Blake Morgan was yellow carded for raising his arm in retaliation) but there were other offences in the game by them which warranted yellow cards but they weren't given.

"And then their No 9 obstructs our No 9 to allow their No 8 to score a try.

"This isn't American football that we are playing and I feel cheated, but I don't like moaning about referees and we just have to get on with it."

Although Ilkley lost JH Johnson to a cracked ankle bone, which is set to rule him out of Saturday's home match against bottom-of-the-table Vale of Lune, Ilkley at least scored some nice tries by Bernie Burns, Struan Connor and Charles Morgan.

Morgan senior added: "I might have to play Elliot Morgan at 12 and Struan at 13 but Vale of Lune were winning 15-5 last weekend against Kirkby Lonsdale when the match was abandoned (due to an injury to host player Cameron Dale) so it won't be easy."