Cleckheaton 21 - 3 Driffield

An eagerly awaited first victory of the season was attained on this fine afternoon at Moorend.
 
Cleckheaton registered their 4point win in fine style, but may rue indiscipline in the final 20 minutes that denied them the extra bonus point, which would have added the gloss to a workman like performance.
 
The early exchanges saw Cleck's forwards imposing their superiority, which allowed the backs, with Pete Murphy to the fore, to breach the visitors line several times . Lack of precision finishing and good scrambling defence from Driffield, frustratingly denied the home side.
 
As half time was beckoning another attack instigated by ever improving young scrum half Oli Depledge, made clever use of the blind side on half way.  Several phases involving forwards and backs brought Cleckheaton within striking distance and Driffield had to infringe to stop the try. Captain Paul Turner opted to kick to touch  and from the resulting linout, set up the driving maul which allowed No8 Rich Piper to score wide out. Iain Gordon struck the ball superbly to add the extras and 2 minutes later the referee blew for half time with Cleckheaton in front 
 
Shortly into the second half the home crowd were treated to the best passage of play, Dave `Lofty' Freeman was again a quality source of possession at the lineout, on this occasion it was `off the top` ball that was fed directly to powerhouse centre Matty Piper who barrelled his way over the gain line. The forwards supported the run, picking and going twice with great effect.  Depledge thriving on the quick ball, released the threequarters once more, Pete Murphy this time served as the decoy to create space for classy Johno Marshall at full back, to feed elusive winger Ross Hayden. A trade mark jinking run from the winger beat 3 Driffield defenders to score at the side of the posts, the relatively easy conversion was duely added.
 
Cleckheaton now well in control, again opted not to take 3 points from a further Driffield infringement but put the ball into the corner, the same formular worked again, ball secured by the towering Freeman, No8 Rich Piper was driven over for his second of the day and Cleckheatons tally again improved by the metronomic boot of fly half Gordon .
 
At 21 pts to 3  Cleck went in search of the bonus point fourth try. However Clecks forwards reacted poorly to several acts of foul play that went unseen by the referee.  Rich Piper was dismissed for attempting to head butt a player, shortly afterwards captain Paul Turner followed with a yellow card and finally back rower Ryan Piercy, took the law into his own hands after being bitten and was also shown a yellow card.
 
With Cleck now down to 12 men thoughts of a bonus point had disappeared. Cleck's defence held manfully for the remaining 9 minutes of the match and Driffield were only able to score 1 consolation try despite their numerical advantage. 
 
Whilst it was a good result, the last quarter took the shine off an otherwise excellent day with the Kestrels also winning away at Bradford Salem .