Ilkley 31, Wirral 26

A DEPLETED Wirral side with a number of players making their debuts for the club put in a courageous performance and almost pulled off a sensational win.

The re-arranged game was played in arctic conditions on Keighley's 4G pitch as the Ilkley ground was again unplayable.

Playing against the wind in the first half, it was Wirral who took the lead when a driving maul produced the metres before a quick pass out saw captain, Craig Harvey, cross close to the posts and James Annetts converted in the third minute.

Ten minutes later with all the pressure coming from Wirral another forwards drive resulted in Rob Pearl touching down at the back of a drive and again converted to give Wirral a 0-14 lead.

Gradually Ilkley came back into the game led by decisive running of their backs and scored tries through Josh Hall and Elliott Morgan, one being converted to leave the game nicely poised at half time with the score 12-14 in Wirral's favour.

In the period just before half-time, Wirral had two tries disallowed as they were deemed as being held up over the line although in one case the Wirral player was lying on the ball over the line - oh for a TMO.

The second half saw Ilkley play a more expansive game and were using their backs more and in a 10 minute period in the middle of the half ran in three long-distance tries of which two were converted to give Ilkley a 31-14 lead.

In the last five minutes of the game, Wirral clicked into gear with some driving runs especially from James Reeve and ran in two tries through Mark Gidman and Dan Harvey, one being converted to leave the score 31-26.

In what turned out to be the final play of the game another Wirral; attack was thwarted 2m from the Ilkley line but the resultant line out was not taken as the referee blew for time.

With so many changes to their team, Coach Matt Cairns was pleased with the performance of this makeshift team - as he prepares for the unique feature of a home game next week against Kendal.