Cleckheaton 36 - 0 Durham City

In atrocious conditions Cleckheaton took on the basement team Durham City. From the kick–off Cleck were on the attack using their superior rolling maul and scrummaging techniques to good advantage, the first score coming from a rolling maul that travelled at least 30 metres before Ryan Piercy claimed the touchdown. Soon after that Iain Gordon added a penalty to extend the lead. However Durham weren’t going to lie down, defending desperately with little possession of their own, and when they did get the ball, the Cleck defence was up quickly to knock them back. The conditions were making holding onto the ball an art form but one player on the field made the least handling mistakes and that was Jack Bickerdike the Cleckheaton scrum half. Bickerdike was next to score as he exploited a hole in the Durham defence blasted by the repeated pick and drives by the Cleck pack to scamper 15 metres and splash down under the posts . Gordon converted.

17 points up at half time and with the arctic breeze at their backs Cleck were straight into the Durham 22, a ruck infringement by the defence allowed Cleck to kick the resultant penalty into the corner for a 5m line-out and that well oiled machine, which is the Cleck catch and drive, resulted in another try for No 8 Richard Piper.

Aggressive running with the ball in hand by Cleck’s blindisde flanker Naz Salama was becoming a feature of the second half and from one of his half breaks prop Paul Turner was on hand to receive the pass and trundle 25 metres to score, Ashton like, with arm raised, unopposed. Gordon converted . With the bonus point in the bag the home sides tempo dropped a little but they remained in the driving seat and it wasn’t long before Richard Piper charged up the middle of the park, shrugging off tiring tacklers as he went forward, finally to dive early and slide over near the posts, Gordon again converting and completing the scoring .

With this Saturday’s defeats for Sheffield and Wheatley Hills this victory takes Cleck to within 3 points of the second position in the League and they now stand in 4th spot . A showdown with Wheatley Hills at the last home game of the Season for the play –offs?