Huddersfield YMCA 15 Cleckheaton 27

Cleckheaton made the short trip to a windswept Laund Hill and came away with maximum points in a 27- 15 victory.
Cleckheaton made 1 change from last week, Brad Marsden returned at lock with Ben Etchells dropping to the bench.
YMCA played with a gusting wind in the first half and took a shock lead on 4 minutes when good ball retention drove Cleckheaton back and from a driving maul they crossed for a try which was unconverted 5-0. This stirred the visitors into urgent action against a YM team that hadn't recorded a win all season partly due to some well documented off field issues. On 12 minutes , Dale Breakwell floated a fine kick towards the left wing, Hayward offloaded the ball to Jack Seddon who romped over for his 6th try of the season, conversion missed , 5-5. On 20 minutes , Olly Depledge and James Wilson combined and Mikey Hayward cut back inside to record his 13th try of the season, kick was good 5-12. YM cut the lead with a 20 metre goal awarded for offside on 30 minutes 8-12. On 33 minutes, Hayward crossed for his second try of the game after good work from Tom Lillycrop and Jack Seddon , the conversion fell just short from a difficult angle, 8-17.
On 36 minutes , Cleckheaton were reduced to 14 men when Ben Thrower was yellow carded for failing to clear the ruck. Archie Rika-Rayne came on and Joey Carley was sacrificed for this period either side of half time.
Early in the 2nd half YM mounted a concerted attack and battered the Cleckheaton line, after a couple of infringements near the line, Jack Marshall tried to intercept and was deemed to have deliberately knocked the ball on and worse was to follow as he was dispatched to the sin bin and the referee awarded the penalty try 15-17 after 50 minutes. Brad Marsden was securing plenty of line out ball in the difficult conditions and carried the ball well and made some surging runs as did flanker Lillycrop. Cleckheaton prop Andy Piper was then pulled out for a high tackle and became the 3rd player to spend time in the bin on 62 minutes. YMCA hooker Hill was playing well but he was the next to incur the wrath of the referee on 66 minutes and he was dispatched to the bin too. Cleckheaton finally got back on track after being on the back foot for much of the 2nd period when Tom Breakwell crossed for his 2nd try of the season after a maul had rumbled some 20 metres downfield, conversion missed but try bonus secured and lead out to 15-22. 2 minutes later and with Marshall restored to the field he showed terrific pace to blast outside his opposite number before passing to Seddon who crossed for his 7th try of the season, conversion wide 15-27 with 10 minutes to play.
There was no further scoring and referee brought an end to a game which was spoilt by the gusting wind, final score YMCA 15 Cleckheaton 27.
Cleckheaton were not at their very best today but still ran in 5 tries and whilst there were several missed tackles which against better quality opposition would have caused problems, a 5th win in a row speaks for itself. This win and other results going in the clubs favour moved up to 2nd in the league, their highest placement since falling back into North 1 East at the end of the 2016/17 season. Next week , Moortown visit Moorend in what should be a cracking encounter , kick off is at 2.15.