The home side showed us to how to turn pressure into points to regain their lead, and with both sides battling over a slender four point margin it was a rare error from Will Hilditch which clinched the points got them.
On his return to the side after recovering from a broken hand Will probably had too much time when he collected a kick through in his own 22. He looked to be in two minds as to whether to take on the on-rushing attackers or kick for touch. When he chose the latter it was a gift for Moortown centre Eddie Crossland whose charge down gave him an easy touchdown to take the score to 21-10.
We continued to battle and would have deserved at least a losing bonus point - something which had looked out of the question at the start of the game.
Moortown’s big pack had come out of the blocks in the first ten minutes shunting us all over the park and eventually setting up space for fly half Ben Fairclough to sell a dummy and go in next to the posts.
To their credit our forwards stuck to their task. They came more and more into the game with the new lightweight flanker pairing of Ben Armstrong and Ethan Ledington’s tackle count a major feature in frustrating the home side.
As the half closed we mounted our best spell of pressure with Hilditch speeding through the home defence to set up Peter Youll on a burst for the posts. Adam Brown went close as Youll was stopped short then Zac Southern was also stopped inches short of the line. The ball was whipped out to the right and Ben Armstrong looked to be in at the corner but a tremendous covering tackle took him into touch.
We did manage to come away with a score from the concerted attack - Waites converting a penalty after Moortown flanker Connor Butler was sin-binned.
We began the second half in similar fashion with a kick and chase to the right touch line by speedy winger Lewis Scott setting up a penalty kick to the corner. Adam Brown was again held up on the line from the catch and drive and we were awarded two more penalties, which saw home centre Keenen Tomlinson also going to the bin.
We opted for a scrum with skipper Ryan Painter going on the short side and forcing his way through two defenders to score. Waites’ conversion giving his side a 10-7 lead with the next score an important one.
Sadly, it was Moortown who showed how to convert pressure into points with replacement Tom Nixon driven over to set up an easy conversion to take the score to 14-10 with twenty minutes left.
The charge down try came just five minutes later and we spent the remainder of the game manfully trying to get that elusive losing bonus point.
With two minutes left Moortown received their third yellow -all seemingly for things that were said to the ref in a game played otherwise in excellent spirit - and then as the players left the field a red card was shown to a Moortown coach.
Moortown: Mark Shires, Thomas Moorby, Keene Tomlinson, Eddie Crossland, Harry Aaronson, Ben Fairclough, Jesse Tipene, James Mycock, David O’Leary, Jack Hughes, Alex Wilcox (captain), Chris Walker, Josh Nwanazia, Connor Butler, Sam Cook.
Reps (all used) Tom Nixon, Sheridan Farley, Will Lawrence.
Tries: Fairclough, Crossland, Nixon.
Cons: Fairclough (3).
Yellow: Butler, Tomlinson, Nixon.
West: Will Hilditch, Lewis Scott, Zac Southern, Peter Youll, MAX Tennant, Stu Waites, Ryan Painter (captain), Adam Coates, Andrew Rollins, Adam Brown, Jake Linighan, John Bunter, Ethan Ledington, Ben Armstrong, Chris Atkins.
Reps (used), Harry-Jon Morgan, Callum Johnston. (Not used): Cameron Mould.
Tries: Painter
Cons: Waites (1)
Pens Waites (1).
Referee: Laurence Pearson (Yorks)