Selby suffered an embarrassing 30-19 defeat on Saturday in their first round Yorkshire Shield match at Yorkshire 3 side West Leeds.

Selby started with the advantage of the elements and deservedly took the lead after scrum-half Mathew Smith went blind off a scrum, accelerating through a huge gap in the West Leeds defence, to touch down near the corner.

West Leeds hit back with two tries - one converted - to go 12-5 in front before a pushover try by Selby number eight Jamie Pocklington was converted by Dan Porter to level the scores at the break.

West Leeds swept to a 20-12 lead early in the second following a try and a penalty.

Things got even worse for Selby when a controversial try was awarded to West Leeds despite appearing not to be grounded.

Smith's protests fell on deaf ears and he saw red for arguing with the referee, reducing Selby to 14 men for the remainder.

Selby never gave up and some excellent running by debutant Sam Weller and old hand Shaun Austerfield looked like producing a try but they ran out of support on the West Leeds 10 metre line.

Charlie Booth gave Selby a glimmer of hope with a touchdown to make it 27-19 but another penalty put the game out of reach at 30-19.

Updated: 10:55 Monday, March 07, 2005