Hollismen go down in season opener
Counties 4 Yorkshire
Leeds Modernians 34 Hornsea 19
The Hollismen ventured into West Yorkshire for their first outing of the 22/23 season with a strong team of 17 to take on Leeds Modernians.
The game began with a silence in honour of the passing of her majesty the queen. The West Yorkshire side won the toss and drilled the ball deep into the Hornsea 22. Poor discipline in and around the ruck by the Hollismen quickly saw them defending their own line and after some strong play by the Mods forwards, they were able to put some points on the board in the early minutes of the game: Mods 5 – 0 Hornsea.
Shortly after, again the East Yorkshire men found themselves camped on, and defending their line. The Hollismen won their lineout and an attempted clearance was charged down by the Mods MOTM, which saw another try scored. Mods 12 – 0 Hornsea.
The Hollismen seemed to switch on at this point and began charging up the hill with some strong attacking play by both the forwards and the backs. Salvidge and Forbes really making themselves a nuisance for the West Yorkshire side. Some excellent work by the back line to gain some good field position within the opposition 22 and a line out from 10m out gave a prime opportunity for some outstanding short drives with Salvidge penetrating to score a fantastic team try. Marshall converted. Mods 12 – 7 Hornsea.
The next 20 minutes of the half was an even affair, but Mods, once again capitalised on some poor discipline from the Hollismen to create a 2 on 1 on the left wing to score in the corner. Mods 17 – 7 Hornsea.
A half-time talk once again got the Hornsea boys firing on all cylinders, and with some great work around the ruck by veterans Walker & Richardson and impressive efforts by Young Wilkinson and some impressive ball handling in the Hornsea back line gave Dan Wardman the chance to make some space, skip around a would be 3 defenders and race 40 yards to dot the ball down under the sticks. Marshall converted. Mods 17 – 14 Hornsea.
Mods once again came back with some solid yards gained through the middle, utilising the boot of their talented fly half to pin Hornsea to their try line. A well worked line out manoeuvre provided an opportunity for them to sneak an arm over the line and score. Mods 24 – 14 Hornsea.
The Hollismen once again got to work with the back line of Andrew, Hill, Stamford, Wardman, Moulds, McCoubrey & Marshal making some excellent yards and capitalising on the dip in to the far corner of the Mods pitch once again gave Salvidge the chance to smash over the mods line to close the gap. Mods 24 – 19 Hornsea.
The rest of the half saw Hornsea under some immense pressure, a few errors and a penalty kick from 30m allowed the West Yorkshire side to extend the lead to 27. Mods 27 – 19 Hornsea.
In the dying minutes, a well practised manoeuvre from the Mods back line saw one of their speedsters able to break through a scrambling Hornsea defence to score between the posts. Mods 34 – 19 Hornsea.
Hornsea Captain Ed Webster said after the match: a loss is always disappointing, but there were many positives to take from the game. Set pieces worked well and we defended well throughout. Some standout performances from returning players and we have some fresh faces in the squad that were invaluable today. Discipline is an area that we will work on to cut the penalties ahead of a tough test next week in our first home game against Halifax.
Leeds Modernians 34
Hornsea 19
Tries:
Salvidge 2
Wardman 1
Conversions:
Marshall 2
