On a warm and sunny night, the Bramley Buffaloes travelled east across the M62 to the Victoria Pleasure Grounds in Goole, the home of the Goole Vikings ARLFC, where they faced East Hull to see who would be the Forty20 cup winners 2019, writes Martyn Cheney.
The Buffaloes came into the game on the back of a rough ten days, not being able to raise a team last weekend and re-grouping midweek to compete in the final.
East Hull will have been confident, despite their loss to cross-city rivals, West Hull Last weekend. They also beat the Buffaloes 30-10 a few weeks ago.
The game started poorly for the Buffaloes when Easts Winger, Jared Hodgson, sneaked over in the corner in the third minute for an unconverted try, giving East Hull the lead Four Nil.
Five minutes later and the Buffaloes were on the attack following back-to-back penalties and were five metres away from the Easts line, but a quick play the ball fooled the Bramley Team and with no acting half the defender swooped on the ball.
In the 13th minute, the Buffaloes levelled the score when winger Luke Standing squeezed his way over in the corner for an unconverted try, levelling the scores at four all.
The game swung to and fro with both teams trying to find that something extra that would allow them to break the deadlock, but the defences were on top form, denying each other opportunities to score.
On the half hour and Easts were over again, this time from a scrum 40 metres out from the Buffaloes line. The East Hull scrum half Jack Collinson saw a small gap in the defensive line, sidestepped the defender and raced away to score unopposed. Ryan Devaney added the conversion to make the score Bramley 4 East Hull 10.
From the restart, East Hull dropped the ball 15 metres from their goal line and the Buffaloes were on the attack, intending to level the scores. However, luck was against the Buffaloes when they fumbled the ball on the first tackle, and the opportunity had gone.
On the stroke of half time, the Buffaloes thought that they had scored. But the referee and touch judge deemed that the Bramley player was in touch before grounding the ball and the half time score was Bramley 4 East Hull 10.
Four minutes after the break and East Hull had scored again, this time Devaney was at dummy Half and somehow managed to reach out and score next to the posts, adding the extras to his own try to extend the lead to 4-16.
in the 48th minute, the Buffaloes forced the ball dead. Ben Cockerill got tangled up with one of the Easts players, who was trying to restart play quickly, and he was sent to the sin-bin for slowing play down.
The Buffaloes survived the expected onslaught, with East Hull trying to take advantage of the extra man, and in the 60th minute captain Brad Wilson pounced on a kick from Standing to score for the Buffaloes, giving them hope of a comeback.
In the lead up to the try, the Buffaloes attacked the middle of the field, before Connor McGill put up a deft bomb, which was allowed to bounce, before being collected by Standing, who went for the line himself before chipping the ball over the defenders for Wilson to touch down. Full back Aaron Henry added the conversion, making the score Bramley 10 East Hull 16.
In the 66th minute, East Hull were on the attack down their right flank. On the last tackle Devaney put up a towering bomb, but before the ball had come back to earth, the touch judge had entered the field of play with his flag raised. His report to the referee was that McGill had attacked the standing leg of the kick and after discussion McGill was sent to the sin-bin.
Three minutes later while on the attack, East Hull’s Devaney attempted a drop doal, which was more of a punt as it never hit the floor, but the referee deemed it legal, extending the lead to 10 points to 17.
With the Buffaloes still a man down and three minutes on the clock of regulation time, East Hull were over again. When hooker Scott Collinson, fought his way over the line from Dummy half, with Jack Collinson adding the conversion, extending the lead to 10-23.
On the last play of the game, Buffaloes prop Ben Maynard-Worrincy capped an excellent game by crashing over the line for a try, with Henry adding the extra two points, making the final score Bramley Buffaloes 16 East Hull 23.
East Hull were the deserved winner, controlling the game better and dealing with the referee’s inconsistencies. Whereas the Buffaloes, once again, played up to the referee and that worked against them, with a lopsided penalty count.
Next weekend the Buffaloes travel to North Yorkshire to take on New Earswick All Blacks.
Buffaloes: 1) Aaron Henry, 2) Keiron Foster-Matthews, 3) Tom White, 16) Connor McGill, 5) Luke Standing, 6) Aidan Barayni, 19) Brad Wilson (c), 8) Ben Maynard-Worrincy, 9) Jake Barnett, 21) Charlie McMurray, 11) Tom Langton, 12) Dan Steel, 13) Xavier Martin, Subs (all used); 4) George Waterson, 14) Tom Scorgie, 18) Ben Cockerill, 17) Brandon Batchelor.
Tries: Standing (13), Wilson (60), Maynard-Worrincy (79)
Goals: Henry x 2
Sin Bin: Cockerill (48), McGill (66)
East Hull: 1) Stephen Mountain, 2) Jared Hodgson, 3) James Carrick, 4) Danny Hunter, 5) Stuart Newlove, 6) Ryan Devaney, 7) Jack Collinson, 8) Jack Andrews, 9) Scott Collinson, 10) Nathan Grant, 11) Callum Baker, 12) Nathan Dunn, 13) Neil Powley, Subs (all used); 14) Luke Whybrow, 15) Reece Cockerline, 16) James Wilson, 17) Lee Waterman.
Tries: Hodgson (3), Collinson, J. (30), Devaney (44), Collinson, S. (77)
Goals: Devaney x 2, Collinson, S.
Drop Goal: Devaney
Man of the Match: Ryan Devaney
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