Cleckheaton took a festive bus trip to Malton & Norton, a side undefeated at home since January 2020, now some 23 months ago. Cleck travelled with a good number of supporters on the bus, all regaled in the compulsory Christmas jumpers/shirts which was the order of the day for the evening’s attire. Some may have worried that such a trip, at this time of year, may have resulted in a lack of focus on the game itself. As it turned out this match delivered what was amongst the most intense final quarters of any game for many years. Cleckheaton’s outstanding performance was full of passion and mental resilience and they defended like Spartans for a well earned victory.

The team had a couple of changes from the previous week with Dom Flanaghan starting in place of Jack Seddon who had to work and Dale Breakwell replacing brother Tom, at fullback. The former going over on his ankle at training on Thursday. Whilst coach Thiu Barnard joined Archi Rika-Rayne and Jack Toulson on the bench.

Cleckheaton enjoyed early pressure, but Malton broke in centre field. The home side looked certain to score but a great tackle from Mikey Hayward created the opportunity for a Cleckheaton counterattack from their own 22. Olly Depledge fed Dale Breakwell, who kicked deep down field and great pace from Jack Marshall saw the flying winger open up Cleck’s account with his 11th try of the season. Breakwell added the conversion for a 7-0 lead

Malton got on the board following a charged down kick and a penalty which gifted them field position and they drove over from the line out to reduce the arrears to 7-5

Cleckheaton were attacking Malt’s right flank when Breakwell was taken out late and handbags at 5 paces ensued. Cleckheaton were awarded the penalty but despite the fact the skirmish would have hardly split a paper bag, to the amazement of both sets of supporters the referee pulled out a red card for each protagonist.

On the 25 minute mark Mikey Hayward jinked his way through Malton’s defence, the ball was advanced by the supporting Dom Flanaghan, who passed back to Hayward for Cleck’s second try and his 10th of the season. Don Brambani added an excellent touchline conversion.

Cleckheaton now looked to be in control and a sublime 50 - 22 kick from Brambani led to Cleck’s 3rd try. The line out was straight from the text book with hooker, Ben Thrower, finding Brad Marsden and the rest of the forwards driving the maul towards the whitewash. Prop Niall Jackson crashed over for his first try in 7 years! Much to the delight of the Cleck faithful Niall will not have to do a naked lap (for those not managing to cross the whitewash all season) for the first time since 2014! He too was overjoyed and was heard to comment that he didn’t mind getting naked, but a lap of the pitch was a quite a long way to run. The referee blew the whistle for half time and scoreboard read 19 - 5 in Cleckheaton’s favour.

The second half saw a monumental defensive effort from Cleckheaton with 90% of the game taking place in Cleckheaton’s final third of the field. Richard Piper, who had a huge performance and ran the ball in relentlessly the whole game, was shown a yellow card for slowing down play and it was 13 men on 14 for ten minutes. Wave after wave of Malton attack was repelled, with no time for Cleckheaton to take a breath. Andy and Matt Piper both put in big shots to keep the home side out and Joe Flanaghan worked tirelessly as the defence scrambled against the numerical advantage. Malton could not breach Cleckheaton’s line but did kick two penalties to put them within 6 points. However, Brambani restored the gap with a penalty from 40m out on one of Cleckheaton’s rare incursions to the home side’s half.

Malton desperate to retain their home winning run continued their assault in Cleckheaton’s danger zone. With 18 minutes to go, Cleck introduced the fresh legs of Rika-Rayne and Barnard. The Moorenders were finding it hard to clear their lines for any length of time and eventually Malton managed to breach the otherwise impregnable defence of the visitors. The conversion was missed but the scoreboard showed there were only 6 points in it with 7 minutes to go.
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Malton were straight back on the attack and it was heart in the mouth time for the travelling support. Cleck could not afford to give away any penalties and dug deep both physically and mentally. With the clock running down, Brambani got a kick away and Josh Plunkett followed it up and superbly grappled for the ball which the tackled Malton player refused to let go of. The kick to the corner from the ensuing penalty and the securing of the line out ball surely signalled that Cleckheaton would depart victoriously. Never count your chickens before they hatch and a Cleck knock-on turned the ball over to Malt’s winger who galloped up the line with no one in front of him. Jack Marshall set off in pursuit and Tom Hainsworth rocketed across field from his position at outside centre. With super speed, Marshall got there first and made a fantastic tackle to save the day. Cleck were not out of the woods yet, as there were a couple of minutes of stoppage time left to play and Malt secured a line-out 7 metres from the Cleckheaton line. The line out wasn’t contested as Cleck prepared to repel the drive but as the Malton player landed, with no maul yet formed, Thiu Barnard reached through and stole the ball off the Malton catcher. Matt Piper drove on and Brambani cleared the lines for one last time before the referee put his whistle to his lips to confirm Cleckheaton’s hard fought win.

Not for the faint hearted but a great game, well done to both sets of players and particularly to the Cleck lads for a fantastic away win.