Yorkshire RFU

Yorkshire U20 87-17 Cheshire U20

Yorkshire kicked off on a bright sunny afternoon at Huddersfield Laund Hill on a superbly prepared pitch in their third game of this year’s campaign having won the previous two games and full of confidence after two previous wins and an excellent warm up and preparation.
With 2 minutes on the clock Yorkshire showed their intent with a superbly taken try following a tight passage of play down the right hand touchline with full back Tom Papworth scoring in the corner the first of his hat trick of tries, the difficult conversion was missed.
After 8 minutes Yorkshire number 8 Rufus Pollard had to be replaced due to an injury and Tayo Olusanya took his place in the forwards.
Cheshire soon hit back with a well worked try from quick ball from a ruck. Try converted and Yorkshire were behind for the only time in the game at 5-7.
On 17 minutes Yorkshire scored again with a consistent passage of play seeing captain Tiernan Ingham cross for the try which was converted by Steven Fuchs who went on to convert 11 of 13 opportunities in the game with an excellent kicking display.
On 20 minutes Cheshire closed the gap with a midfield penalty with Yorkshire being penalised for holding on.
Within four minutes Yorkshire had scored again when centre Joe Scholefield ran an unstoppable line through the Cheshire defence.
Within three minutes Yorkshire had crossed again when a box kick from their own 22 resulted in Tom Papworth going outside 2 defenders to score a try that should really have been stopped by the Cheshire defence.
Yorkshire swapped out the front row for fresh legs and the scrum dominance continued, for the next 10 minutes it appeared that the game had stalled a little with a series of scrums and lineouts until Yorkshire again showed their class in the backs with a great little pop pass from Papworth to Maine Bunting for him to score the first of his three tries.
With half time beckoning Yorkshire again attacked from deep and with some excellent off loading and quick re cycling showed the pace out wide to leave Cheshire struggling to even get a hand on the try scorer Steven Fuchs who converted his own try to take us to half time 38-10 up.
The second half started with Cheshire making good ground into the Yorkshire 22 but they were undone by a loose pass that was intercepted by Maine Bunting who ran the try in from his own 22.
The next score was to be for Cheshire as a little chip over the top in the Yorkshire 22 bounces awkwardly and Yorkshire failed to deal with it giving Cheshire a relatively easy try and conversion.
This seemed to galvanise the Yorkshire team into being more clinical and they very quickly replied with flanker Dylan Brown at first receiver breaking the defensive line off the back of another good line out.
There then followed a period of 15 minutes where Yorkshire almost seemed to score at will and the Yorkshire backs showing their pace and ability to distribute the ball with substitutes Harry Snow getting 2 tries, Ben Hall and replacement scrum half Ethan Grant all crossing to score with Maine Bunting also getting his third.
No doubt the Cheshire heads had dropped a little but the execution of the Yorkshire side was excellent and the final try was a superb cross field kick gathered by Bunting and handed off to Snow to run in unopposed.
This is the largest win recorded by a Yorkshire side and even though Cheshire struggled with numbers and injuries it cannot detract from one of the best performances the U20 squad has produced for some time.
The win sees Durham and Yorkshire on equal points at the top of the table and it will all come down to the game at Hartlepool on the 3rd May where it is winner takes al to progress to the next round.