The Travelling Faithful were treated to a very mixed afternoon at Heslam Park. They constituted a fair amount to the crowd of 150. If you were a neutral then this was a fantastic, entertaining afternoon. Both sides scored some excellent tries.

The first 15 minutes were dominated by Dale who played some outstanding rugby to run in 3 converted tries to lead by 21 points. Oli Cicognini ran at the defence and then passed inside to put Callum Trees into space. Trees offloaded to Idris Morgan who crossed under the posts. Cicognini them followed up a chip over the top and was first to touch down. Morgan then grabbed a second score after a searing break that left the defence grasping at thin air. All three were converted by Archie Haddon.

Then the mistakes started to creep into Dale’s game. The restart was fielded but a knock-on gave Scunthorpe a scrum and possession. A kick ahead meant Dale had a lineout in their own 22. The lineout was lost and Scunthorpe went through 4 good phases before Will Robinson crossed the whitewash for an unconverted try.

Dale regrouped and again had good possession and territory. A charge from Joe Fawcett was carried forward by the forwards and Robbie Collinson came very close to scoring himself. Unfortunately, he was injured in the tackle and was replaced by Sid Holden. Scunthorpe’s clearance was run back with interest by the visitors and Callum Trees got the better of any defensive tackles to score a converted try.

Another knock-on by Dale gave Scunthorpe a scrum on halfway. The scrum won, they again put some good interplay together with the result that Marcus Payne added his name to the scoresheet. Williams Dark converted.

Wharfedale reasserted their dominance and scored two more tries. Sid Holden touched down after an effective catch and drive. Joe Fawcett created mayhem in Scunny’s defence with a trademark foray. Will Bell was in attendance to carry the attack over the line for a converted try. Dale were back in dominant form although there was one knock on in this period but Scunthorpe could not capitalise this time.

The final mistake of the first half gave the home side a lineout in Dale’s 22. Ethan Heath-Drury was on the end of some good handling to score. No conversion left the score at Scunthorpe 17 Wharfedale 40 at halftime.

The start of the second half was the reverse of the opening with Scunthorpe scoring three tries to close the gap to 2 points. They played some good rugby and deserved the scores but were helped by more handling errors by Dale. Alfie Taylor, Heath-Drury and Robinson all scored with Dark converting all three.

Callum Trees ran in his second try and Haddon’s conversion gave Dale a two-score lead of 9 points. Scunthorpe still had plenty of fight left in them and pressed hard to score again. They were rewarded on 80 minutes with an unconverted try by Robinson which gave him a superb hat-trick. This gave them a second bonus point which was thoroughly deserved and was enough to move off the bottom spot in the league and keep their hopes of National 2 survival alive.

There were moments during this epic match when Wharfedale played some sublime rugby. They were dominant in the tackle and moved the ball and play around with apparent ease. There were also moments when they seemed to lose their shape and lost any idea of a game plan. Hats off to Scunthorpe for not giving up and making a game of it.

Wharfedale Haddon; Viner, Trees, Cicognini, Weston; Bell, Morgan (Kaup-Samuels 79); Dickinson, Collinson (Holden 24), Ward (Green 32, Ward 63), Heys, Hedgley (c), Tweedale (Brewster 54), Fawcett (Kay 79), Beresford