This side was a pale shadow of the one which ran Hull so close last week. It did bear distinct similarities to the one which struggled so badly at both Horden and Redcar. Fortunately at Sandal there was very little at stake for us.

Henry Tones was left to run touch following his knock last week, with Anth Carr at prop and Tim Sawyer taking over from Henry in the back row. Otherwise, it was the same side which faced the league leaders.

Sandal had the benefit of the considerable slope in the first half and took advantage to attack our line in the opening minutes. Mark Hardcastle got a penalty in front of the posts on four minutes.

sandal attacked from the kick off and Paul Rudd pulled off a great tackle as Sandal's No 8 Burns broke through the middle. Unfortunately "Garse" took a nasty knock to the side of his knee and it looks like ligament damage, which means his season is probably over. Greg Edwards came on with Chocky moving into the second row.

Allan Milne made one great break up the left wing but it was Sandal who were pressing and they got their first try on 20 minutes. Toddy allowed a high kick to bounce into the 22 and as he went to collect he knocked on. From the scrum Aussie fly half Jake Havebond was sent in and Hardcastle converted.

Without ever threatening their line we managed to restrict Sandal to just one more penalty before half time. The break promised the prospect of a good rollocking followed by the advantage of the slope in the second half .

We started brightly, and Davy Tighe got a 25 metre penalty, before the referee took exception to Darren Thomas using his feet to excess in trying to prise the ball from a ruck. It seemed a harsh decision but it was a yellow for Dash - or at least it would have been if Ref Colin Tovey had remembered to bring his cards.

Sandal took advantage with Burns again rampaging through our defence and setting up Havebond to go in at the corner to make it 18-3.

Davy then hit the post with a penalty - none of our players had followed up quickly enough. We did keep the pressure on though and got our only try from a push over five yard scrum. Stu Bennett was the man to touch down and at 18-10 we looked like we might finally start stringing some phases together in the last 20 minutes.

Sandal missed a fairly easy penalty as Thomas returned to the fray but did go ahead with a controversial try on 66. It was a messy affair with a maul ending up close to the post. Mr Tovey awarded the try, but our players were adamant that the ball had been held up and hadn't crossed the line either. It led to an exchange of opinions before the conversion was taken.

Gez Geritz came on for Carl Robinson, who had been suffering from flu all week, and Phil Wallis came in for Dash with Tighe moving to scrum half.

Wallis promptly timed his pass to perfection to send Milne bursting through and young Paul Miller came in on a powerfulsupporting run to power over the line. But this was definitely not our day as he lost the ball as he was tackled in the act of touching down.

That try with ten minutes to go would have made a big difference. But, as we kept the prerssure up, Davy Tighe chose to go blind side form a maul five metres out and a dropped ball gave Sandal centre Brindley the chance to complete a 100 metre breakaway and kill the game off. I'd love to say we deserved better but we didn't.

Sandal M Hardcastle, D Haworth, B Brindley, A Marshall, D Chester, J Havebond, B Wheeler, P Kidd, G Swift, A Wilson, J Riley, L Norriss, J Sewell, T Knapp, G Burns. Reps: T Wicks, S Whittingham, D Wild.

West: Martin Todd, Paul Miller, Peter Hodgson, Allan Milne, Andrew Hare, Davy Tighe, Darren Thomas, Anth Carr, Brett Cullinane, Carl Robinson, Carl Miller, Paul Rudd, Andrew Davies, Tim Sawyer, Stu Bennett [capt}.

Reps: Michael Geritz, Phil Wallis, Greg Edwards.