Wath 26 Old Grovians 27

Off the back of their morale boosting home win over Old Otliensians, Grovians completed their second double in as many weeks at their fourth-placed hosts in Yorkshire Two.

Playing with the wind at their backs in the first half, the visitors took the lead when ill-discipline from the home side led to Ben Brown notching his first three-pointer.

Another penalty soon followed to extend OG’s lead before the game’s opening try.

With Grovians camped in enemy territory, and a strong platform provided by the impressive Grovians pack, a neat inside ball from fly-half Alex Masterson sent the returning Max Kennedy through to dive over. A testing conversion was successfully slotted over by Brown, which made the score 13-0.

Ben Pearson and Danny Secker were immense in defence for the men in green, chopping down Wath's forward runners.

OG were soon in for their second try when Masterson burst through a gap in the home defence, this time linking up with the supporting Anthony Griffin, who galloped home to touch down under the sticks. A simple conversion for Brown provided a 20-0 half-time lead.

Wath came out swinging in the second half, however, scoring a converted try within the first five minutes.

Next came a bizarre series of events, with Joe Garforth seeing yellow for collapsing a scrum close to their own line, quickly followed by John Oakes suffering the same fate, despite appearing to merely slip before the ball had been put in.

With Wath again opting for the scrum, Grovians were forced to go uncontested. A misunderstanding of the regulations around the number of players permitted on the field after going uncontested led the referee to reducing Grovians a further player.

At 20-7 and playing against only 12 players for the next ten minutes, Wath failed to capitalise, with a superb turnover by the tireless returning Joe Sowden setting up a breakaway try for flanker Danny Secker. Brown slotted over the extras.

The home side exploited the inevitable overlaps to score a further two tries during the 10-minute sin-bin spell to make it 27-19 going into the final 10 minutes.

Grovians were able to welcome back their vice-captain Garforth and Oakes, who carried the ball like a warrior all day.

A misplaced pass from Brown to Griffin allowed Wath’s winger to hack the ball all the way from his own 10-metre line to dot down in the corner for their own bonus point try.

Despite a successful conversion, the final score read 27-26 and Grovians could head into a week’s break with another four points, moving them up to sixth in the table.