Keighley 22 Ilkley 15

Keighley gained revenge for an early-season defeat by Ilkley in what was yet another close encounter between these derby rivals.

The Rose Cottage hosts had won eight of their 14 previous league matches against Ilkley, who had triumphed in the other six.

Six of those clashes have also been decided by seven points or less, and with the visitors leading 15-10 at half-time, there was no reason to doubt that another tight game was on the way.

The key moment of the match came in the 48th minute when Keighley’s left winger Sam Walker cut inside Peter Shanks with the try-line beckoning.

Walker was caught high and would probably have scored if he hadn’t been. The Keighley supporters were calling for a penalty try and a red card for Ilkley’s full back.

Referee David Patterson only gave Shanks a yellow card, however, and did not give a penalty try.

Nevertheless, Keighley did make their man advantage count, scoring two tries while Shanks was in the dug-out.

Full back Danny McGee crossed in the 54th minute and it was his nicely- weighted kick that set up Walker for a try two minutes later, fly half Alex Brown converting from in front of the posts to extend Keighley’s lead to 22-15.

That was how the score remained, Keighley therefore missing out on the try bonus point as their first-half scores were made up of a try by flanker Scott Dyson and a conversion and a penalty by Brown.

All Ilkley’s points came in the first half, flanker Neil Spence getting on the end of a superb forward drive that was as good in its own way as the individual try that Dyson scored.

Winger Richard Greenfield also crossed for a try, and fly half Phil Howell added a solid conversion and a well-struck penalty.

Keighley’s director of rugby Graeme Sheffield said of the yellow-card incident: “The sin-binning was very important. I thought a yellow card was fair enough but the referee should have awarded a penalty try because no-one was going to stop Sam from scoring.”

Ilkley’s coach Rhys Morgan said: “Everything that could go wrong in the first ten minutes of the second half did go wrong.

“I didn’t think it was a yellow card because I thought the tackle was on the shoulder but I will have to look at the video.

“What we wanted to do then was steady things down and sort things out but we weren’t able to do that because of knock-ons and an injury to centre Morgan Collins.

“Also Charlie Scott was carrying an injury going into the match and Nathan Bland pulled a hamstring.”

Sheffield added: “The first half was a stalemate but we dominated the second half and it was disappointing that we couldn’t get that bonus point.”