Aireborough 15 Baildon 14

Matches between these derby rivals at Nunroyd Park are usually close, and this was no exception.

The consensus of opinion was that the hosts from Yeadon deserved their win but visiting supporters, and indeed some of their players, were puzzled as to why Baildon didn’t have a pot at goal in the closing stages.

Baildon fly half Nick Lister, who scored both their tries, said: “I couldn’t understand why the referee (Robert Marshall) didn’t pull them up for offside but Aireborough wanted to win more than us and deserved their victory, though we had a chance to win it with five minutes left.

“The referee gave us a penalty about 30 metres out and we should have just bounced the ball on the floor and had a kick at goal but we played on, the referee eventually said advantage over and we didn’t score any points.”

Having conceded that they were second best, Lister added: “A lot of our players are working away at the moment which makes it difficult for them to get to training, such as Marcus Dracup, Ben Newton and Richard Kingham, which means we are having to sort things out on the day and aren’t as fluid as we can be.”

Aireborough’s Richard Fall was pressed into service as a prop, and the 43-year-old said: “I am not a prop but have played there seven or eight times over the last two or three years and so it is a case of get in there and get on with it.

“We talked beforehand about how successful Baildon had been last season and we were just determined to win.

“It was disappointing to concede the tries in the way that we did but in the last 20 or 30 minutes we generally kept them in or around their 22 and didn’t concede penalties. The match point was shared between all our players for their effort.”

Baildon had the first chance of points when Aireborough were offside in the second minute but Jarrod Huss was short with the penalty from just inside the home half.

It wasn’t long before the hosts’ superiority in the pack was apparent, and left winger Anthony Clitheroe and full back Ollie Catherall showed their paces before fly half Nick Holdsworth scored a try in the 17th minute.

The pass to him was far from ideal but in stopping to catch it and spinning around, he seemed to throw the Baildon defence and scooted through a gap before converting.

Lister made the hosts pay a heavy price for conceding a penalty in the 25th minute, cutting through to score, and he repeated the dose ten minutes later, Huss again improving to make it 14-7 at half-time.

Aireborough flanker Gareth Poole went off with a suspected fractured thumb midway through the first half.

Nick Holdsworth missed a penalty for them as the first half drew to a close but he was successful three minutes into the second half to narrow the margin to three points.

Baildon replacement prop Guy Price was yellow-carded in the 50th minute for a high tackle, and while he was off the field Aireborough scored their third try, intense No 8 Jonny Mackey getting the touchdown in the 53rd minute after a great drive by replacement prop, newcomer Charlie Middleton.

After that, the hosts managed to keep play deep in Baildon’s half, apart from that five-minute spell near the end.