Yorkshire Division One: Keighley 11 Bradford Salem 16

BRADFORD Salem gained revenge in this hard-fought derby, deserving their victory on balance as Keighley slipped to their third straight defeat.

The game started at a cracking pace, and the forward battle was intense with no quarter given.

Keighley, who won 19-17 at Salem earlier in the season with the last kick of the match, survived an early onslaught and moved into opposition territory, using their big centres to drive upfield, and the result was a penalty for Alex Brown after Salem were caught offside.

The early score stirred Keighley into life as continued pressure gave them good field position and possession, and five minutes later they had an opportunity to double their tally after Salem winger Ryan Smith was penalised for a high shot but this time Brown pushed his penalty wide of the uprights.

However, the long-serving Keighley player made amends with his second penalty success after just over 30 minutes to put his side 6-0 ahead.

For the remainder of the half, neither side seemed able to break down excellent defences, although Salem, with the half-back duo of Matt Booth and Andy Robinson controlling the runners in midfield, gained a foothold in the hosts’ territory, and full back Danny Belcher booted over a penalty to reduce the arrears to 6-3 at the break.

But it was a similar story to previous weeks for Keighley as their good work was undone by poor execution of basic skills, inaccurate line-out work and poor ball retention at the breakdown.

The second half had a similar theme in what was an arm wrestle in the midfield, with neither side being able to gain dominance of possession or territory.

With the forwards more or less cancelling each other out, it was the backs who would probably decide the outcome.

Salem, with a strong defence, contained everything that Keighley had to offer.

Poor kicking gave the prominent Belcher the chance to run out of defence, which allowed his centres to link up and run some good lines of attack, causing Keighley problems.

Growing in confidence, two further Belcher penalties gave the visitors a 9-6 lead with 15 minutes of the second half played.

Keighley then suffered a major setback as influential centre Adam Horsfall was sent to the sin-bin by West Yorkshire Society referee Mike Dickinson.

With a one-man advantage, Salem, who had a consistently good line-out, were now forcing the pace and were unlucky to be denied a try when referee Dickinson was unable to see the grounding of the ball.

However, a couple of drives then took Salem close to their opponents' try line and, from a ruck, scrum half Matt Booth shot through a rare gap to score a fine try improved by Belcher to put the visitors 16-6 in front.

Keighley sensed that the match was slipping away from them, but, to their credit, they began to up their game, with former Salem player Dan Snowden to the fore.

After gaining good field position, swift handling in the backs created just enough space for winger Joe Copperwaite to squeeze over in the right corner.

Although they had the best of the remaining minutes, they were unable to string enough phases together to put Salem under any meaningful pressure and had to be content with a losing bonus point as Salem deserved their victory.

Both teams return to league action on Saturday, January 7, but Keighley travel to Burnley on Tuesday, December 27 (2.15pm) in their annual War of the Roses friendly. Salem, meanwhile, are at Baildon on Boxing Day (12.30pm).