West Bowling in second-half fade out (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

West Bowling in second-half fade out

4:00pm Tuesday 19th February 2013 in Sport By Jack Strother

West Bowling 24, Slaithwaite Saracens 46

West Bowling crashed out of the third round of the Pennine President's Cup after a bright start against Slaithwaite Saracens at Emsley's Rec.

The Saracens struck first when a simple passing move brought full back Gavin Dyson into the line to create the extra man, and scrum half Willy Allen added the extras before bowling levelled the scores with a cracking try from Adam Reardon.

The burly stand-off used centre Jack Dawson as a foil from a scrum to fool the visitors' defence to touch down far enough in for half-back Ben Heald to add the extra two.

Hooker Nathan Kitson, playing his last game before returning to Dudley Hill for the summer season, shook the Huddersfield outfit with two brilliant touchdowns.

His first skilful effort came with an early kick in the set which bounced wickedly, leaving Dyson completely stranded and he hacked on to beat all-comers in a race to the chalk.

He repeated the dose three minutes later when he raced onto an offload from loose forward Richard Lumb and put an inch-perfect grubber kick behind the line to pounce yet again.

Heald was on target with the conversions and West’s were well in the box seat at 18-6.

However, Reardon turned from saint to sinner when he collected a loose ball on his own line and fired out a silly pass straight into the arms of Saracens wingman Jayden Wood, who accepted the gift with glee, and Wood was soon over for his brace when he finished off another left-sided raid in the corner.

Both efforts were converted and the visitors went into the break mightily relieved to be all square at 18-18.

A long pass left Bowling flat-footed on the restart, allowing Allen a simple chance that he converted himself before West’s full back Todd Carter failed to collect a Dawson pass with the route to the corner begging.

Slaithwaite were fortunate when centre Marlon Billy went over after a blatant forward pass, and there was a strong suspicion of another one when wingman Dave Roebuck found the chalk at the flag.

There was no cause for complaint, however, when prop forward Matt Reynolds pushed off four defenders to plant the ball on the whitewash, and he once again showed his brutal strength with a duplicate effort straight from the kick-off.

Fellow packman John Birt ended West’s misery when he spun over for the final score of what was a one-sided second stanza.