Otley Town 2 Hemsworth MW 1

The past few seasons have seen these two teams lock horns and both home and away, the results have always been very close.

Both sides tend to play good flowing football, without the malice that other teams in this division bring with them, with the referee usually having an easy time.

Hemsworth, undefeated in the Premier Division this season, came to Otley, looking at their lowly league position and thought they would go away with easy pickings. Town's hard work and domination of games of recent weeks finally came to fruition in the first-half and they could quite easily have scored five.

As it was 2-0 at half-time was a reasonable scoreline, especially if Town could have kept up the momentum. The pace of James Firth caused all sorts of problems to the defence and saw Graham Hutchinson put away a rebound from one of Firth's shots.

Firth again was the thorn in the side of Hemsworth that led to the skillful Steve Boddy scoring the second goal. The visitors lost a player when Andrew Redman was kicked on the calf then the same player received a second yellow card for a bad tackle from behind on Joe Lunn, who remarkably kept his temper.

In the second-half Town, as in previous weeks, allowed the opposition back into the game through a defensive error and Paul Banton replied for Hemsworth.

The visitors applied the pressure and manager Martin Budden's substitution to the injured Murgatroyd, saw Matthew Budden return after injury and give his best performance this season. Late in the game Redman was substituted and Terry Pearson, still recovering from a bad injury, reinforced the defence for the last five minutes.

Town were missing Steve Sullivan and Lee Grice through injury and it looks as if once these two return, healthy competition for places could see Town's season take a turn for the better.