York 34 Keighley 16

Keighley after an excellent passing movement responded with a try from outside half and captain Danny McGee. Although Keighley battled well the York forwards forced them into their twenty two metre area, after a driving maul and a series of rucks the ball was moved to big prop Will Dutton who powered over to score, outside half Ben Johnson added the conversion.

Keighley raised their game, some powerful running by new second row pairing of Smith Brown and veteran Steve Welsh ably supported by the rest of the pack took York by surprise.

When York did have the ball they tended to kick for field position, having had enough of the crunching tackles from the Keighley centres Ferrazzano and Blackwell, who probably had their best game of the season. York put under considerable pressure were forced into mistakes and two penalties for Keighley centre Ben Blackwell. Late in the half York’s kicker Johnson landed a penalty.

Keighley started the second half badly, a good attacking play broke down in opposition territory,York were relieved to kick upfield. Unfortunately the innocuous defensive kick was badly mishandled giving the York backs the chance to hack the ball on, centre Eddie Bradshaw scooped up and scored between the posts, Johnson added the extras.

A few minutes later a break out of defence by York gave supporting full back Alex Nixon an easy try. Keighley dominating territory were undone when a further handling error in the backs gave Bradshaw his second try under the posts and a conversion for Johnson. In the dying minutes of the game Keighley exerting a great deal of pressure gave scrum half Woodwiss his chance, burrowing over to score wide out.

Strange as it may seem, Keighley played some really good rugby, unfortunately for them York were able to capitalise on three poor errors of judgement which gained them three gifted tries. Taking the positives from the game Keighley are improving and should in theory move from the bottom of the league table in the near future.

This Saturday they entertain North Eastern rivals Acklam who are currently bottom of the league.