YORK travelled a short distance down the M1 to Sandal buoyed by their win the previous week over the league leaders Harrogate and hoping to make it three victories on the trot.

Henry Du Boulay moving to Australia resulted in Luke Stockton playing at No 8, with Sam Croft slotting in to the second row.

There was only one change in the backs, Liam Hessay was unavailable, so George Davies started at full back.

Sandal have had a difficult start to the season having only won two of their eight games.

Sandal decided to play with the slope, kicked off and for the first 15 minutes York barely saw the ball as the home side enjoyed plenty of possession and kept York pinned back in their half but Sandal played with no imagination or flair and their attacks were easily defended.

As the first quarter of the game came to an end York began to enjoy possession and were able to spend time on the ball and build field position.

From a Sandal line out, York stole the ball and a number of forward drives took play into the 22 and after several more drives captain Archie Fothergill touched down. Harry Shackleton had no problem with the conversion. 0-7.

York sought to take advantage and after 30 minutes a solid scrum allowed the backs to use the numerical advantage to put George Davies in at the corner. The conversion was missed. The score now 0-12.

From the kick off the away supporters hoped that their team would take further advantage of the extra man, York drove well out of defence but not for the first, or indeed the last time lost the ball in contact and gave away penalties.

Sandal took one such penalty quickly,and from the resulting scrum York kicked to touch and the referee blew his whistle for half-time.

Just five minutes into the second half, the home side enjoyed a scrum 15 metres from York’s line, their scrum half picked up and went the width of the pitch before scoring in the corner. The conversion was missed. 5-12.

The impasse was broken when York earned a scrum penalty which was kicked into their opponent’s 22. The line out ball was clean and both forwards and backs combined to put the home side under pressure which eventually told, and Ben Mills burst through the tiring defence to touch down. The conversion was missed. 5-17.

York supporters hoped that their side would take advantage of their superiority and add further scores.

It took a further eight minutes before they were able to do so. A penalty took them into the 22 and the ever-alert Toby Atkin took advantage of a disorganised defence to run in from 20 metres and add a trademark try. Harry Shackleton again added the extra 2 points. 5-24.

Any thought that York may be able to relax and see out the game was not shared by the home side who were determined to score themselves.

From one such attack the referee took the view that George Davis defended illegally and with 4 minutes to go was yellow carded.

Despite been down to 14 men, York held firm and chose to run the ball,, took it into contact, lost it and Sandal said thank you very much and used the extra man to score in the corner. The conversion attempt which failed was the last kick of the game, settling the score at 10-24 to York.