Saturday 9th March 2002
Pennine League Division 3
Keighley Albion 'A' 13 Dodworth 28

Albion appear to have lost touch with a promotion spot in the league with this home defeat to a more workmanlike Barnsley side in this close encounter at Highfield.

The opening exchanges looked best for Albion.  A stunning tackle, in more ways than one, by Garry Boocock lead to a lost ball for Dodworth.  However it also lead to Boocock being sparked and having to leave the field while he recovered.  About 5 minutes in Keith Dixon seized on the better field position to calmly drop a goal and open the scoring.

However Dodworth soon hit back.  A marginal forward pass started off a move which saw the winger break several tackles over 15m to score under the posts.  The conversion inevitably followed and put Dodworth in the lead on 8 minutes.  A few minutes after this a precisely weighted grubber kick by Keith Dixon gave Alistair Feather an easy try behind the posts.  Dixon put over the conversion to give the lead back to the Keighley side.

With the poor conditions and resolute defence the attacks from both sides then started to go nowhere.  However Dodworth got near enough after 20 minutes of play to just miss a drop goal attempt.  Near the end of the half a defensive lapse gave Dodworth a scrum 10m out and they used this to force their way over.  No conversion, but the half-time score was back in the visitors favour at 7-10.

The second half meant that Albion were playing down the slope and so had the upper hand initially.  Keith Dixon calmly converted a penalty after 50 minutes.  Then the lead went back to the home side when a long Dixon pass found Glen Palmer and his short ball gave Wayne Smith a half-chance 20m out.  The centre then stepped through several tackles to cross.

Dodworth were still battling and though a forward was held on his back over the line, looked more and more off the pace.  However the turning point came after 67 minutes.  Substitute forward Neil Palmer was sin-binned and in his absence Dodworth were invigorated and ran in 3 converted tries against a tiring defence.  This gave rather a false impression to the scoreline and if Albion could have held out for the last ten minutes then they, rather than Dodworth, would be looking at finishing second in the league.

Throughout the match the stand-out Albion player was Scott Belamy who's tackling and running was a shining example to the rest of the team.  Another youngster who deserves a mention is Colin Pickles who showed plenty of promise for his first outing in the 'A' team.  However as a winger he was never going to see much action in the poor conditions.

Return to the home page