LEODIENSIANS 24

BRADFORD SALEM 17

Bradford Salem are having a nearly season, and this was another nearly performance.

They had the better start and finish against the second-placed side in Yorkshire Division Two, but frustrated their management team and supporters in between.

Salem's rugby manager Paul Rae said: "There is no side in the division that can live with our backs - we could win with 30 per cent possession.

"The problem here was that our senior players, such as flanker Darren Close and centres Steve Brown and Neil Klenk, were making too many basic mistakes.

"And it is very frustrating because we are playing some good rugby.

"We played the better rugby overall, and our second half performance was encouraging.

"We played 15-man rugby, and their players were going down like flies near the end.

"But I just knew the referee would play next to no injury time in the second half because it was getting so dark. We just don't seem to be getting the breaks from referees."

It was difficult to spot which side were second and which was ninth in the opening passages of play. Salem full back Joe Simpson, who is having an erratic season with his place-kicking, missed two penalties, one of which unluckily came back off the upright, and Leos fly half Robert Smith badly hooked his only attempt.

With both sides throwing the odd stray pass and putting together an occasional promising three-quarter move there was nothing in it. However, centre Richard Barlow gave Leos the edge with a clever diagonal kick which was hacked on by flanker Chris Long, who beat Salem fly half Jody Wall to the touchdown in the visitors' left corner.

That swung the pendulum, and soon the lead became 12-0, right winger Scott Amos going over and Smith converting superbly from the touchline via the far upright. Barlow then rubbed in Leos' late first half superiority with a fine third try, taking a short Smith pass on the burst to dive over.

Smith's conversion made the score a harsh 19-0, but Salem did get some reward close to half-time with a try by Close.

Salem kicked away a fair amount of possession early in the second half, but were unlucky when their left winger Richard Moorhouse was ajudged to have high-tackled Amos from behind.

That set the platform for Leos scrum half Chris Jew to cross, but Salem weren't done yet.

Simpson showed how dangerous he can be in open play by scoring a try, and Salem's fitness looked to be telling when Brown scored an even better try, Simpson converting to cut the margin to seven points.

The problem here was that the visitors were into injury time by now, and their only chance of salvaging a draw disappeared when No 8 Ben Scarbrough elected to kick ahead instead of passing to Moorhouse on his left.

Salem will surely finish higher than ninth in what is a very competitive division, but they will have to cut down on the errors to do so.