Beverley Braves under elevens crashed out of the Admiral of the Humber cup at the quarter-final stage with a below par performance at West Hull.
Whilst there were some good individual performances, the Braves failed to play as a team and they found it difficult to establish a foothold in the game against the defensive line speed of Wests.
George Bennet-Tere and Henry Hughes worked hard in attack but struggled to make the kind of yards, they have been able to in recent games, whilst there were the usual tackling efforts from Ethan Rowbotham, Oliver Loney, and in the second-half, William Sanford.
Despite huge amounts of West Hull pressure the Braves line held well, but eventually it had to give and the resulting converted try made it 6- nil. A further try out wide to the left took the score to 10nil, but credit must be given for the defensive effort as the Braves turned the ball over cheaply to their opposition making their task that much harder.
William Wallis was called on to make several last ditch tackles at full back to keep his team in the game whilst Oliver Gresswell, Matthew Hutchinson and Tom Colley contributed to the defensive effort in the first half, the latter alongside Harry Newton also caught Wests napping several times with scoots from dummy half.
10nil at half-time the Braves needed to make an early impression and had William Kirkup’s attempted interception come off the game may have swung the way of the Braves. As it was continued West Hull pressure paid off with a further converted try to make it 16nil.
Playing behind a team with little go forward was not much fun for the half-backs but Lewis Egan tried to get his team moving valiantly before having to go off after taking an accidental kick to the head. His half-back partner Marcus Walker showed sparks of what the Braves can do with the occasional run and relieved some pressure on his team-mates with some long kicks down field from within the Braves 20. From one of those kicks Tom Cohen’s chase and resulting tackle was a highlight of the game for the Braves and that, combined with a fine tackle on a rampaging West Hull attacker, earned him the man of the match award.
A further highlight for the Braves was when a training ground move was executed to perfection, with two miss-out passes creating the space for George Lees to race down the left to score the try of the game.
At 16-4, there was still a glimmer of hope for the Braves but despite a last ditch tackle from Dylan English, some hard work from Joseph Dennis and Ryan Deane and a change at hooker in the shape of Tom Marr, West Hull were too strong for the Braves, allowing them to run in a further two tries in the last five minutes to win 24-4.
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