Whipping boys stun North Ribblesdale and push them to defeat

by Andrew Mills

NORTH Ribblesdale produced a woeful performance as they suffered defeat at the hands of Yorkshire One's whipping boys.

Acklam's pack dominated and the visitors heaped problems on themselves by repeatedly crashing the ball into the big home side and repeatedly lost possession.

It was only in the last ten minutes when John Davidson came on that Ribb started to move the ball resulting in two tries from in-form Angus Carr.

The last one a gem as he beat several men in arcing run which took him under the posts from the halfway line.

His effort five minutes earlier was pretty good too. He beat several men from 40 yards to go over in the corner. Ian Close getting over for the other Ribb try

Ribb were penalised at the first two scrums and were repeatedly shunted off their own ball.

Acklam grew in confidence and the pressure finally told when skipper Ashton kicked two penalties and centre Sudron went over wide out for an unconverted try.

The second half saw Ribb change things with Graham Newhouse beefing up the pack and Davidson coming on at full back but things did not change much.

Ribb could not make any ground and ended up playing most of the second half with the wind at their backs in their own half existing off meagre possession.

Despite tenacious tackling by Johnny Moore and Jonathan Richards, O'Brien went over on the right for a try.

From the kick off Acklam put the ball deep and after keeping possession for several phases Mallam went over in the corner for another unconverted try.

At 21-0, Ribb looked buried, but the movement of Davidson to stand off finally gave the back line some zip.

Ribb started to stretch the home defence and a loose clearing kick gave Ribb an attacking line-out which saw Ian Close go over for a maiden try.

With Davidson pulling the strings, North Ribblesdale finished strongly and Carr's late double showed the potential of the back division who had to live off meagre scraps of possession. They will be looking for a bigger contribution from their forwards in future matches.