Beverley Under 14s travelled to West Park Leeds for their long awaited Yorkshire Plate Final on Sunday against a strong Ripon team.
Although full of confidence, Beverley knew it would be a difficult task to overturn Ripon, but played the full game with the spirit and determination that had previously ensured they fully deserved a place in the final, but unfortunately came across a very clinical opposition.
The game was a ferocious battle, in difficult conditions, and both teams made mistakes, the forwards including Harrison Petrie, Alex Crockett and Oliver Lazenby in the front row held their own in the scrums and won important balls against the head, second row partnership of Jasper Ghio and Josh Dillon is proving strong week on week and the back row triplets of Ben Wilkinson, Ben Walker and Toby Ashworth continued to impress.
As the half progressed the forwards won good ball at the breakdown and allowed the drives from Petrie to continue as they have in previous weeks, scrum half Adam Skeates was able to distribute good ball to Eden Quantock and with Nathan Cullen, returning from injury, and the ever impressive Sam Acaster in the centres there were real opportunities to make progress.
Ripon spread the ball well and wingers Oliver Jenner and Alex Nuttall has a busy day defending and Tom Barnard made some significant tackles at Full back.
With the half time score was 17 – 0 to Ripon, Beverley felt all was to play for, but the Ripon team then used the slope to their advantage, although Beverley defended well, it was only a matter of time before Ripon went over.
Beverley put on their replacements to bolster the tiered legs, with Harry Hestleton, Cameron Lawley, Jasper Law, Aaron Waring, Daniel Bryans, Ben Ashley and Harry Gunn getting involved in the final match, but unfortunately this was to no avail.
Ripon were confident by now and everything seemed to their way.
An unfortunate neck injury to Ben Ashley towards the end of the match brought the game to a conclusion, thankfully he should make a speedy recovery, the final score 40 – 0.
A game too far for the Beverley team, but they can all be very proud indeed on what they have achieved so far this season, to make a Yorkshire Final is without doubt a huge achievement and goes to show how far this team has come and developed in the past year.
