Perhaps the least said about this the better. It was Beverley’s last home fixture of what has been a fairly wretched season and it ended in another heavy defeat.
They were simply swamped from start to finish by a side which was altogether too powerful and quick. Yet up front the Beverley pack dominated throughout and it seems almost inconceivable that a side which won the forward exchanges could end up with a 78 point defeat.
Beverley’s problems lay in their defending which was by some way the worst of the season. Beverley took the field with a backline which was makeshift in the extreme and for much of the game their central pairing was composed of back row forwards. As a result Huddersfield looked like scoring whenever they had the ball in their hands, and they usually did.
Beverley RUFC went behind in the sixth minute to a try scored by flanker Sam Wilkinson and converted by wing Gavin Stead. After that it was more or less a steady accumulation of points for Huddersfield. Adam Ryder(2), Gavin Stead, Simon Wilson, and Tom Bullock(2) all crossed for tries with Stead adding six conversions to give them a 47-7 halftime lead. Beverley’s hopes had flickered briefly on twenty minutes when Alex Smith cut through for a try which Ryan Murray converted to make it 14-7.
By four minutes into the second half Huddersfield had added two more tries by Ryder and Ed Barber with one conversion. Beverley’s defending was going from bad to worse and Huddersfield cut them apart with ease. Gaps were opening up alarmingly, especially whenever Huddersfield attacked down the middle. Tom Wood, Stead, Ryder(2) and Wilson all had easy run-ins and Stead added four conversions.
Despite all this it was not all doom and gloom for Beverley. Their pack continued to dominate and drove over for an excellent try touched down by Dave Brant. The back row of Jack Bunn, Lewis Starbuck and Brant all had good games, Brant in particular making ground with several powerful runs. They rather lost momentum after Alex Ogilvie went off injured but still generally managed to dominate the forward exchanges. Ogilvie moves away from the area in the summer and Beverley will sorely miss this influential and genial prop.
Despite all the defeats this season it is difficult to remember occasions when the Beverley pack has been outplayed. Nor has the line-out ever floundered. Today it would probably have been more productive for Beverley had they kept the ball in the forwards instead of trying to move it wide, something which never looked like bringing any reward.
Behind the scrum young colts wing Jake Marin and full back James Williams made a good fist of things but it was a tough day to be thrown in at this level. Huddersfield have as hard and powerful a running backline as there is in this league. A set of backs such as Beverley put out today could hardly have been expected to contain it.
So the season is over at Beaver Park and there now remains one final away fixture at Morley. From the results point of view it has been a disappointing year but Beverley can point to numerous reasons in mitigation – they had, for instance, lost several key players in the summer, they started and finished the season without their influential skipper and fly half and they lost more than their fair share of senior players to injury or absence along the way. Director of Rugby Junior Tupai has hardly ever, if at all, been able to put out the same side two weeks running.
On the bright side the under 17s have done the club proud and there is some encouraging talent emerging in the junior ranks. Coach Ian Spence deserves great credit for the performance of what is a relatively young pack and so too do Ian Archibald and Mike Kilgannon who have come out of retirement to play while players have been injured.
Final Score: Beverley RUFC 12 Huddersfield YMCA 90 | Reported by John Nursey
