Keighley Albion 16 Park Amateurs 10 - Albion entertained one of the big guns from the Pennine Premier Division when they played Park Amateurs from Halifax in the third round of the BARLA Yorkshire Cup.

Looking to cause an upset Albion started very brightly with some excellent defence from Ben Farrar, Dean Brookes and Gareth Greenbank. This set the tone for the game and Albion produced their most consistent defensive display of the season so far. The game was scoreless after 20 minutes despite some fine flowing rugby from both sides which saw play go end to end of the field. Steve Cullen had the opportunity to take the lead through three penalty kicks but unfortunately saw his attempts drift wide.

This seemed to spur Park Amateurs into action and they applied a great deal of pressure on to Albion's line. It looked like they had finally made the breakthrough but a great try saving tackle from Craig Livock and Ian Spencer prevented a certain score and saw possession change over to the Albion.

Both sides continued to press and it was an unforced error from Park which finally saw the deadlock broken. A wayward pass was seized upon by Steve Cullen and he broke clear on a 60 yard sprint to the line. He added the conversion to leave the score at 6 - 0 in Albion's favour with 10 minutes left of the half. Park Amateurs continued to press and were awarded a penalty for holding down which was converted to get them off the mark.

With Albion seemingly able to soak up all the pressure they looked to be taking a lead into the half time interval. However Park Amateurs showed why they are a Premier division side and seized a rare opportunity to get round the tight Albion defence and squeeze in at the corner. The conversion was missed but the score was tied at 6 - 6 with it all to play for in the second half.

Coming up the hill in the second half Albion took the game straight back to Park Amateurs and applied all the early pressure. Farrar took a high tackle and from the resultant penalty Brookes kicked the goal to give Albion the lead back 10 minutes into the half. The home side continued to gain the upper hand when Brookes allowed Livock to make the half break and create the space for Rob Bailey to release Chris Atkins to score the try. Brookes added the goal to leave the score at 14 - 6 with 25 minutes to play.

Albion were in the ascendancy and had further scoring opportunities to increase their lead although the penalty kicks were missed. Brookes kicked a further penalty after Damien Smith and Jimmy Feather had just missed out on scoring from a kick through. It looked as if the missed opportunities could be costly as Park Amateurs showed they weren't dead and buried when their centre scored in the corner with 7 minutes remaining. The kick was missed and with the score at 16 - 10 Brookes had two shots at drop goals but both went wide. Albion finished as they began with a keen defence which saw them through to the final whistle and the cup upset they were looking for.

To a man the Albion side were excellent with Farrar, Brookes and Greenbank the pick of the home side. Albion first team are away next week at Brighouse in the league whilst the second team are away to Todmorden.

Cowling 78

Hoyland Vikings 0

After their 48-16 victory over Hoyland Vikings the previous week expectations were high for a good return match. The 50-plus spectators were not disappointed.

Jimmy Anson danced his way through the heavyweight Hoyland defence to open the scoring after just 30 seconds.

Cowling continued to pile on the pressure and went in with a 44-0 lead at the break. They continued where they had left off in the second half and by the final whistle they had piled up the monster 78-0 scoreline.

Jimmy Anson bagged four tries and took the man of the match award.

Carleton Farrell scored three with individual efforts coming from Ernest Hall, Mark Wilson, Tom McAndrew, Kirk Verity, Karl Hocaniuk and Wayne Verity. Wilson kicked seven conversions, with Dave Needham adding five and Darren Greenwood one.

Cowling Harlequin are now second in the league having won three and lost two of their five games so far. Their next game is away to Rotherham on October 19.