11:19pm Sunday 5th September 2010
By Neil Klenk
York 33, Bradford Salem 3
Bradford Salem made a disappointing start to their Yorkhshire Division One league campaign after they suffered a 33-3 defeat at the hands of York at Clifton Park.
The Bradford side competed well in the opening quarter but then conceded two tries in quick succession to go behind 14-0.
To their credit Salem responded well and they reduced the deficit to 14-3 courtesy of a penalty from scrum half Dominic Henry.
On 30 minutes, however, the visitors' cause was not helped when Henry had to leave the field with a hamstring injury, Tom Barnes coming in on the wing and Steve McManus moving from the wing to take over the scrum half duties.
York were beginning to exert more pressure and after a series of scrummages close to the Salem line they managed to squeeze over in the right corner to take a 19-3 lead at the break.
After holding their opponents at bay for the first 20 minutes of the second half, Salem were further disrupted when flanker Chris Fisher had to leave the field to be replaced by Sam Leach.
Then to compound their problems, prop and skipper Simon Davies, who had been suffering from flu and laryngitis, also had to go off and was replaced by Jordan Ashworth.
Just as they thought it couldn't get any worse, influencial centre Christian Bourne went off with a suspected broken hand and the Heaton side were reduced to 14 men.
Minutes later Salem were down to 13 men after Ashworth was sent to the sin-bin for stamping and York took full advantage of their opponents lack of numbers to run in 2 further tries and seal a 33-3 victory.
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