They hunted as a pack with tremendous disciplined performances from them all. Tim Sawyer led by example converting suatained pressure to go over twice in the first half. Line out King Chocky Davies also went over in the first half as did Davy Tighe and Brett Cullinane.

Henry Tones and Ed Britton were first to every breakdown and on the flanks and Stu Bennett dominated when he came on for young Henry after 45 minutes. Stu got two cracking tries popping up in the backs to finish off fine moves. Panda Hare got one try and could have had several which was the same for Allan Milne.

Sandal only made it into our half once in the opening half hour and they made us pay. Tim Sawyer had already given us a five point lead after 8 minutes bursting frrom the back of a maul but, nine minutes later, prop Dave Walker did the same. He was so close to Darren Thomas that the lively scrum half didn't have the room to take his legs. Hardcastle converted to give the visitors a 5-7 lead.

But Chocky, who was in commanding form, finished off a forwards drive on 17 minutes to give us a 10-7 lead which Tim Sawyer added to on 20 minutes - again finishing off a forwards drive. All three tries had been scored in almost the same spot some five metres in from the right touchline. Davy Tighe appreciated the practice and slotted this one to make it 17-7 which he added to on 25 minutes with a simple penalty.

Sandal were under the cosh and it was only a matter of time before we increased the score. We had to wait till almost half time for Brett Cullinane to be driven over with Davy again converting. But Sandal came back and Hardcastle opted for three points when we gave away a very rare penalty on the stroke of half-time. 27-10

The backs had been getting to know each other in the first half and had been unlucky with one or two slick moves. They finally got their just rewards when a slick Andrew Hare galloped over after 44 minutes after a spell of superb play by Henry Tones. Tonesy's reward was to be replaced by Stuart Bennett who promptly set about a one man demoliotion job of the pumnch drunk Sandal pack. He took every opportiunity to run at the heart of their defence going over for his first one [pictured], just three minutes after coming on, and his second on 71 minutes. In between Allan Milne broke through the Sandal defence some 20 metres out and galloped round beneath the posts for an easy Tighe conversion.

To their credit Sandal never gave up and one of the most pleasing aspects of our game was the way we defended our line for a five minute spell in the last quarter. We had the game out of sight by then but the new pride and determination in the squad kept them out.

We will have harder games than this but you could not ask for a better opening day result than this. There wasn't a bad performance on the pitch. Sawyer, Davies, Rudd, Cullinane, Britton, Tones, Milne and Tighe were, as ever, the backbone of the side but there were real bonuses in the return to league action of Panda, a maturing performance from Dash at scrum half, and some great defence and running from Mullen and Miller on the wings.

Young Toddy hardly put a foot wrong at full back, and would have had a score or two if he had had more confidence to scream for the ball when we had an overlap. Stu Bennett was in awesome form for his 35 minutes and Phil Gilbraith did so well we didn't even miss Tim Sawyer when he replaced him. Chummer's new fitness have us much more presence in the set pieces and the loose and Carl Robinson was super efficient in everything he did. We could just enjoy this season!

West: Martin Todd, Carl Miller, Andrew Hare, Allan Milne, David Mullen, Davy Tighe, Darren Thomas, Mark Cholmondeley [ Geritz 67], Brett Cullinane, Carlo Robinson, Paul Rudd, Andrew Davies, Henry Tones [Bennett 45], Ed Britton, Tim Sawyer [capt] [Gilbraith 60]

Reps: Stuart Bennett, Michael Geritz, Phil Gilbraith

Sandal Peter Froggett, Dave Chester, Ali Youden, Rich Smithson, Davis Ell, Mark Hardcastle, Ben Wheeler, Brad Raison, Tim Wicksl, Dave Walker, Andy Clarke, James Riley, Richard Hoyland, Andrew Blackhurst, Dave Senior, Daniel Wild

Reps: Tom Rigby, Andrew Strachan.