Clayton 30 Wakefield City 16

A CRUCIAL second-half touchdown by sure-footed centre Ryan Wilkinson guaranteed Clayton's safe passage into the second round of the Andrew Bennett Trophy after a tough home test against Wakefield City.

The Villagers elected to have first use of the slope and struck the opening blow when scrum-half Devon Gurney caught the Wakefield defence flat-footed to weave to the chalk, leaving Wilkinson to tag on the extras.

The visitors started to buckle under the Clayton backs' speedy handling and they fell further in arrears when a smart change of direction saw loose forward James Flanagan dive over at the side of the posts, with Wilkinson once again making certain of full reward.

The hosts were shaken when an innocuous kick through was allowed to bounce, leaving Wakefield centre Stu Kirk to collect the rebound and touch the chalk.

The visitors then showed their resilience with a number of relieving runs out of defence as the Clayton started to turn the screw.

Hooker Karl Spring was unlucky to see a precision kick to the corner narrowly escape the grasp of wingman Oliver McElroy, before prop forward Chris Whitehead hacked on to pounce over the line for another well-worked effort.

A clever individual touchdown from the enterprising Spring, who spotted a gap to pick up and dart over the whitewash, left Wilkinson to add on further extra points and it appeared Clayton were coasting to an easy victory with a 22-4 interval tally.

Yet Wakefield now had the slope and conditions in their favour and made them count straight from the restart when burly prop Baz Stoked used his bulk to bounce off two defenders to trundle to the chalk, ignoring two unmarked colleagues on his shoulder.

The match was back in the melting pot shortly afterwards when Kirk was on hand to cross out wide in acres of space and scrum half Ben Mosely added both conversions to close the gap to 22-16.

Clayton recovered smartly when a loose pass was intercepted by City stand-off Joey Buras, who raced 70 metres before falling to a magnificent tackle from home number one Karl Robinson.

The game was then effectively decided when Wilkinson wrestled the ball free in a one-on-one tackle to sprint to the sticks. He added the easy conversion – and made completely sure of victory with a penalty when the visitors were caught punching at the ruck.