Bradford Salem 12 - 18 Cleckheaton Kestrels

The Kestrels travelled to Bradford Salem for the first time in many years and were, in what is a welcome but now rare event, joined by the 4th Team who were also playing Salem on the club’s 2nd pitch.
 
Scrum half Pete Chartier, who has previously played for Norfolk side Diss and who is currently working in Cleckheaton on the engineering project to replace the motorway bridge at Whitcliffe, made his debut for the club.
 
The game was an ill-tempered affair, which was fairly light on fighting but featured vitriolic banter aplenty. Salem’s inside centre was clearly a local champion in this regard and used his skills to wind up the visiting team at every opportunity. Over zealous celebration at every tackle or knock-on and the offer of his chin to anyone who took exception to these antics, were just two tools that influenced the spirit of this game.
 
The Kestrels started strongly, having the upper hand in the scrummage with good work from front three of Piper, Motlib and Furness. Despite this pressure, eagerness to cross the whitewash from every play hampered Cleck’s progress, with mistakes leading to the loss of possession on several occasions. Cleck did however make their territorial advantage pay and amassed 6 points through two penalties from Jarrad Toulson.
 
Salem were relatively short on attacking options and used the speculative kick-through on several occasions. Whilst Davis and Clapham dealt with nearly all of these kicks, one led to some success with the securing of a penalty for holding onto the ball, just outside Cleck’s 22. From the resulting touch finding kick and line out, Salem exposed a sizeable hole in the Kestrels’ defence and strolled through for a try under the posts. The score was converted to give Salem a 7 – 6 lead.
 
As the half drew to a close the taunting grew and tempers frayed further and the referee reached for his pocket to send Pete Chartier into the bin for 10 mins. The one man advantage for Salem was short lived as their tight head prop was also sent to the bin for swinging a kick at the head of a Cleck player as he lay at the bottom of a ruck. The half ended without further score and Cleck trailed by a single point. 

Stern messages from coach Gordon Piper at half time saw the Kestrels restart the game in a much more controlled manner. Within 5 minutes of the kick-off a good run by Mitch Ashworth, bringing the ball back inside, allowed the forwards to pick and drive and gave Neil Gillan the opportunity to barge over from 5 metres out. Toulson added the extras to put Cleck back in front at 13-7. 
For the next 15 minutes, the Kestrels unfortunately allowed their discipline to lapse and were once again drawn into the verbal slanging match instigated by the opposition. Danny Furness had to leave the field after emerging groggy from the bottom of a ruck following an alleged punch and as tempers flared again Salem's centre and Cleckheaton's Tom Brook were shown yellow cards. Brook's expletive reaction to his saw the referee change the colour from yellow to red and Cleck would be down to 14 men for the rest of the game.

This acted as a wake up call to the Kestrels and they once again exerted their forward dominance, resulting in Chris Piper bashing his way over. The conversion drifted wide but with less than 10 mins left on the clock the points seemed secure with Cleck 18-7 in front.

Salem however had not read this script and attacked Cleckheaton from the kick-off. With their numerical advantage now restored, the home side created space up Cleck's right wing and the Salem winger looked certain to score. As 13 out of the Kestrels' remaining 14 players had given up the ghost, Cleck's fullback Tom Clapham raced across the pitch to tackle the would-be try scorer and turn him on his back over the line.

Salem did grab a consolation try with the last play of the game to give a final score of 18-12 and earn themselves a bonus point. If the Kestrels can start to exert more control whilst building pressure and play with a little more patience they can look forward to a good season in their merit league.