Steve Tosney writes:

Selby Colts hosted Wetherby this week at Sandhill Lane in the Yorkshire Colts U18 North League in what proved to be a tough encounter for the Swans.

The match started brightly for Selby with a penalty during the early exchanges, seeing fly-half Kealey put the home side 3-0 up within 5 minutes.

Selby, with the momentum, then took the game to Wetherby with some excellent forward play pushing on through several phases from rucks making ground with Moore and Langhorn before captain Toye powered over leaving Wetherby a little shell shocked and seeing the hosts 8-0 in the lead and deservedly so.

Wetherby, with their vocal travelling support, managed to rally themselves shortly after when a kick downfield was recovered by one of their backs. Selby will look back on this phase of play with regret as they would have normally been better in defence as the Wetherby player proceeded on a 30 yard run through the centre of the park, scoring under the posts. Wetherby celebrated intensely as they made the score 8-7 with the conversion.

Wetherby, now with their tails up, sensed nervousness during the Selby ranks and with some powerful back line running shortly made the score 8-12 with a try in the corner, unconverted.

Selby then proceeded to dominate the final 15 minutes of the second half, keeping Wetherby firmly camped in their 22 but unfortunately without being able to turn the pressure into points, despite the best efforts of Moffat and Massam to drive over the line.

Half time saw Head Coach Stoker make several changes, which saw back row Joyce welcomed back to the team after an 18 month lay off with a knee injury.

With Selby now kicking into the low winter sun, life became a little more challenging after the break as Wetherby, now in good spirits after finishing the first half with the score in their favour and having weathered the Selby storm, looked to push on. They did so scoring an unconverted try within 5 minutes of the re-start to make the score 8-17.

The match then played out to be a tightly fought encounter until the last 15 minutes when Selby were enforced into a change seeing Kealey taken off injured after a high tackle. The referee had previously warned Wetherby about their tackling and this was a step too far, with their player seeing yellow and spending time in the sin-bin for his misdemeanour. Nevertheless, with Wetherby down to 14 players, this seemed to galvanise their team spirit and they scored again with a drive over the line through their forwards taking the score to 18-24 after the conversion.

Selby then rallied themselves with some determined tackling from Cockeram and inspired battling runs from Tehan, both back row players having been introduced at half time. Tehan got his reward for his efforts with a diving try over the line, however the conversion attempted by Bugg was chased down by the Wetherby right winger to leave the score at 13-24 with 10 minutes to go.

Wetherby, not to be deterred, quickly quashed any chance of a dramatic comeback from Selby within a couple of minutes, scoring in the corner to make the score 13-29, then another try in quick succession after losing a scrum against the head on their own line to make the final score 13-36.

Selby RUFC

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