Queensbury 25 Keighley Albion 31

Keighley Albion showed real character following last week's semi-final disappointment when they locked horns with Queensbury for the second time in a week.

This time they came away with victorious from an entertaining contest.

Albion opened the scoring with a Simon Kelk penalty, Rob Hauhey crossed for the first try following excellent handling by Andy Parker and Mick Reddiough. The home side hit back with two tries, a conversion and a drop goal to go in front by 13-6.

Albion came back with half backs Paul Moses and Simon Kelk directing play, Dean Brooks split the home defence and slipped a neat pass out of the tackle to send young winger Mick Reddiough away for a spectacular diving touchdown in the corner. Albion went back in front when Andy Parker opened a gap to send Haughey away sprinting 50 yards to out-pace the cover and go in under the posts. Kelk converted to make it 13-16 at the break.

The second half continued at the same pace as Albion's pack continued to make good ground against the slope with Ian Spencer having a towering game in the Albion front row and was well backed up by fellow prop Martin Fryers, Dean Brooks and John Normanton.

Wayne McComb made his mark in typical fashion, chipping the ball over the defence, the fullback fumbled and he was there to collect the ball and touchdown, Kelk converting.

Queensbury again hit back with a converted try to put themselves back in the game.

With the painful memories of last week's game still fresh, Albion were in no mood to let this one slip away. Dean Brooks dropped a goal followed by a Simon kelk penalty and another piece of McComb magic to put the game within Albion's grasp. The little half-back's superb reverse pass sent the supporting Kelk over, and he added the conversion.

The home side came back to add a further try, but it was too late to spoil Albion's day.

Coach Gary Moorby was delighted with the performance. "It was superb, particularly after last week's disappointment. We played for a full 80 minutes and got our reward, two of our younger players, 18-year-old Danny Bowness on his first team debut and 16-year-old Danny Seaton did a superb job."

Injury-hit Silsden Park Rangers rounded off their league season with a 26-22 defeat against a strong Underbank side, but in the circumstances gave a terrific performance worthy of at lease a share of the spoils.

Man of the match Tony Williams played a real captain's role leading from the front. There were also superb efforts from Dave Arnold, Alan Preston and top tackler Dave Webster. Meanwhile Tim Smith and Stuart Baldwin were fin threequarters and Mark claydon's pace regularly caused panic in the Underbank defence.

Rangers got off to a sluggish start and were soon 10-0 down, but with Arnold and Graham Sheffield organising and the excellent Tobi Hooper making a series of telling bursts they soon hit back. A great run by Williams drew the defence to allow Smith to cut inside. Mark Kent's conversion was followed by a penalty to take Rangers within two points.

Underbank ran in two further tries to lead 20-8 at the break, but Silsden roared back in the second period.

Kent, having a tremendous match as emergency stand-off, backed up to score after good work from Williams and with Bob Harrison proving a real handful down the slip a Rangers win looked possible. Great tackling for Underbank into an error deep in their own quarter and moments later Williams was striding through to reduce the arrears to four points.

At the other end Sheffield pulled off a memorable tackle to thwart Underbank, but the Huddersfield side managed to extend their lead shortly afterwards. Enthusiastic Rangers still wouldn't lie down and Williams reached out for his second try to create a nailbiting finish.

Claydon, Preston and Sheffield all went close to completing the fight-back, but Rangers just couldn't find the finishing touch and eventually ran out of time.

Silsden now finish fourth in Division Four and tomorrow (Saturday) entertain Slaithwaite Saracens in the play-off competition, kick off 2.30pm.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.