OTLEY moved into fourth position in National League Two North for the first time in four years, having secured a third successive win at Hinckley Hornets by a score of 25-14.

Having kicked off with the wind, the Hornets had most of the early possession and territory and Otley’s defence was up to the task.

They took an early Otley scrum some 30 metres out, but then lost it just as they came close to the line.

Otley slowly pushed Hinckley back and in their first real attack, Ben Magee was high tackled by No 8 Alex Salt midway in Hinckley’s half. Salt was shown a red card and Ben Smith slotted the penalty.

The next scrum saw Otley exerting their dominance in the pack, the referee giving the visitors a penalty – a sequence that occurred after a number of later scrums.

Towards the end of the first quarter, a scrum penalty was put into the left hand corner and, after the forwards had tried to go over, Harry Skelton bursting his way over.

The Hornets scored with the last play of the half. They came down the left side, set up a rolling maul and Gareth Turner touched down with Rory Vowles adding the conversion to make the score 8-7.

Otley started the second half the better, the referee allowing a penalty advantage from an incident within Hinckley’s 22.

With ball in hand, Magee ran to the appointed spot. Suggesting that he was about to kick to touch, he then changed his mind and ran through an unprepared Hornet’s defence to score giving Smith an easy conversion.

Eight points down, Hinckley were stung into action and Calum Dacey came close after Ben Pointon had done the hard yards, only for the ball to be spilt.

The man advantage that Otley had was being to tell, and their next try came with 15 minutes to go when Adam Malthouse and Brett Mitchell playing ‘to me, to you’ with the ball, Mitchell touching down.

Otley grabbed the bonus point when Magee broke through the Hinckley defence to feed the ball along the line, winger Josh Hall touching down in the corner.

From the subsequent kick-off, Hinckley recovered the ball and having moved the ball down the pitch, Dacey scored with Joe Wilson adding the conversion.

In the closing moments of the game, Otley simply ran down the clock, Joe Rowntree kicking to touch from the base of their scrum to bring the game to a conclusion.

NICK DOYLE