HARROGATE successfully defended their Yorkshire Cup at Morley last night - but only just, after Doncaster's John Liley missed two late penalties to win it.

The Claro Roaders held off a fightback and late pressure by the South Yorkshiremen to complete back-to-back triumphs with a tense 13-12 victory.

Harrogate went ahead in a dour, forward-dominated first half, when prop Rob Wilson was driven over from a line-out, but their counterparts responded when Derek Eves touched down.

Harrogate were reduced to 14 men on the half-hour mark when No 8 Ollie Cook was sin-binned but they upped their game. Captain Rhys Morgan broke away and Doncaster soon infringed, with fly-half Lee Cholewa goaling the penalty to make it 8-5.

Harrogate dominated for the rest of the half and extended their lead when scrum-half Morgan seized on a mistake to chip ahead and his kick was gathered by Ed Smithies, who dashed 50 metres to the line to make it 13-5. The conversion was missed.

Doncaster, missing injured Yorkshire fly-half Rob Liley and centre Richard Poskitt, the former Pocklington School pupil, piled on the pressure and were rewarded with ten minutes to go when Liley set up winger Jonathan Storey to score.

Liley converted to reduce the gap to one point, but then he missed those two penalties on 74 minutes and in injury time as Doncaster failed to capitalise on their late pressure.

Updated: 11:29 Thursday, May 15, 2003