HANGING Heaton comfortably retained the Sovereign Health Care Priestley Shield despite the efforts of Pudsey St Lawrence young guns Jordan Moore, Harry Cullingford, Josh Wilson, Josh Smith and Archie Scott.

Saints opted to bat at Keighley on an afternoon when the first chills of autumn could be felt but were put on the back foot by a mean opening spell from Wasim Nazir and tidy back-up by Adeel Hafeez , Umar Rehman and Jamie Baulk.

St Lawrence's repair job from 37-3 was started by under-17s duo Harry Cullingford and Josh Smith, who added 52 for the fourth wicket.

The dismissals of Cullingford and Smith in successive balls left a lot on the shoulders of Moore and experienced wicketkeeper-batsman Steve Thompson.

But Thompson was controversially given out leg before when he gloved a sharply-turning Rehman off break and it was then up to Moore to give Saints any chance of setting a decent target.

Judicious hitting helped him to 45 as wickets fell but, trying to reach his half-century in the grand manner, he holed out to Michael Horner in the deep, meaning that St Lawrence were all out for 163 with ten balls of their innings unused.

Early wickets were the order of the day for Saints after tea and Imran Dawood and Oliver Newton fell while the Batley side added 32.

But man of the match Steve Bourne looked classy in making 64, being particularly fluent through extra cover and mid off, with skipper Mark Inwood (20) and Nabeel Hafeez (33no) seeing them towards and past the winning post.

However, defeat could not stop Robert Thornton from being a proud stand-in Saints skipper. He said: "We were 20 to 30 runs short but we had eight players who were 18 or under and they didn't disgrace themselves one bit."

Inwood added: "Our experience counted, as we thought it would, but we are looking forward to playing Pudsey St Lawrence in the league next season as they will surely get promoted."