Otley Saracens 17, Keighley 17

With promotion secured to NE Division 1 next season Keighley rested several of their regular forwards to bring in several replacements in the pack who acquitted themselves well.

The bench also included colt James Kubran who did experienced ten minutes of first team rugby due to an injury to scrum half Martin Uren. The young man performed well.

After five minutes the visitors executed an excellent set piece move in the backs to send John Hinchliffe over between the posts. Harrison had no trouble with the conversion to give Keighley the lead.

Otley came back strongly and only excellent defence by Smith and Hinchliffe kept Otley out. Keighley were now under considerable pressure which was relieved by a good Uren break carried on by Feather into the Otley half.

Two penalty attempts by Otley failed but on 25 minutes they were successful with the third attempt to narrow the margin to four points in Keighley's favour.

The somewhat disjointed play by both sides continued as play see-sawed back and forth. The penalty count was going well against Keighley putting tremendous pressure on their defence which held out until on the stroke of half-time Otley's full back went over in the corner but the conversion failed. Half-time arrived with Keighley 8-7 down.

Keighley pressure at the start of the second period failed to be converted into points unlike Otley who took advantage of their pressure to score a converted try so that the visitors were now 15-7 down.

Good forward play by Keighley was rewarded by a Rob Riley try in the corner. From the difficult angle Harrison goaled the conversion to keep Keighley in touch only one point down at 15-14.

Harrison then had two penalty opportunities - the first failing after the ball bounced on top of the cross bar only to come back into play, the second attempt succeeded to give the visitors a two point lead at 17-15.

The last 15 minutes was unfortunately all Otley as their size and weight began to tell.

Two tries by the home side, one of which was converted, gave a comfortable win to Otley albeit one which rather flattered them.

l Keighley Thirds lost to Old Brodleians for the third time this season.

Old Brodleians scored first with a try which Keighley should have stopped but three Keighley players managed to miss the ball. Keighley did however return the compliment when Tim Moore was the first to react to a kick through with Duncan Grant kicking the conversion, giving Keighley a 5-7 lead.

Considering Keighley had fielded their strongest team in weeks they looked like a side who had just learned how to play - conceding four penalties to one and trailing 17-10 at half-time.

With Keighley playing down the slope any thoughts of an easy second half were crushed when Old Brodleians scored a try with only five minutes gone.

The successful conversion gave Old Brodleians a 24-10 lead and at this point Keighley seemed to give up and conceded yet another penalty and try, increasing the gap to 32-10. Keighley did manage to obtain a consolation try through Scott Cooney which Duncan Grant converted giving a full time score of 32-17.

With only five games left Keighley Thirds have now lost three games more than they have won so there will have to be a major improvement if their target of 50/50 is to be met.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.