For the first time this season the defence came up woefully short, time and again allowing Driffield runners well over the gain line and enabling them to produce a great attacking platform. The West forwards, so dominant in recent games, were out-muscled at every area bar the maul from which most of their good attacking play came. The backs struggled too, not helped by the lack of decent ball, and lacked much dynamism in midfield.

All that said West could still have won the game and had chances at the end to do so. Good teams find a way to get the win when playing badly and if West want to be considered a serious force in this league these losses by a single score must be turned into wins.

On the plus side for Dave Stubbs on his first match in charge West never laid down and at times in the second half when it looked like the game was over they responded well and kept the result in doubt right to the last whistle. The tries have also not dried up, outscoring the visitors 4 to 3 but some of the scorers need to try and score nearer the posts!!

West didn’t start well, failing to deal with the kick-off and putting themselves straight on the back foot playing into a strong wind. However they were able to absorb the pressure and opened the scoring from a defensive position when Davy Tighe made his second sniping break from the base of a ruck and sent Paul Rudd away and he outpaced the defence from half way to score under the posts. Having spent 7 minutes pinned in their own half this was just what the home side needed.

Driffield came back strongly and Tighe’s equally lively opposite number Stephenson threw a nice dummy to race in on the short side. The conversion struck the upright so West kept the lead but when Birch converted a simple penalty on 24 minutes the Yorkshire outfit moved ahead and, having played the majority of the rugby until this point, deserved it.

The next try came from West building some momentum going forward. The pack were working well and took play from inside their own half well into Driffield territory with some good pick and drive and support play. But when the ball was moved wide it was turned over too easily and the alert Birch ran a lovely line to break upfield before offloading a scoring pass to Plumridge. The score belonged to Birch who had made several breaks and was looking dangerous behind a powerful pack of forwards. He followed up the good running with an excellent wide conversion to make the score 15-7.

With only 7 minutes left in the half West advanced upfield determined to close the gap before the break. As the forwards surged to the line Tighe got caught up amongst it and Darren Thomas came into scrum half. He spotted half a gap on thes short side and making the break himself he drew the last defender and fed Dan Boatman out wide who dived in at the corner. Masshedar missed the conversion.

At 15-12 down with a strong wind behind them in the second half West had to feel confident but would have to deal better with the Driffield runners who were hitting the ball at pace phase after phase and making light work of the West defensive line in and around the rucks.

The start of the second half indicated this hadn’t happened as Driffield mounted an attack of numerous phases all the way from their own half to the home 22. The sharp Yorkshire backs finished off the move with only 4 second half minutes gone, Piercy capping off some nice handling out wide to score. Birch landed another wide conversion to give his side a comfortable 10 point lead.

If West were going to score from anywhere it would be through their rolling maul which was proving virtually unstoppable from anywhere on the field. Tim Sawyer was the beneficiary on 55 minutes when he emerged from the bottom of the pile for a try after a maul had carried the ball there from well outside the 22. Masshedar again missed the conversion and Birch edged Driffield further into the lead minutes later with a simple penalty from in-front of the posts.

With Driffield prop Perez fresh out of the sin-bin and West on the attack a separate match developed. Perez and friend squared up to Anth Carr and Chocky Davies with the play stretched over to the other side of the field. After a few minutes scuffle referee Havery had to stop play and come across to sort out the situation and as he did so Perez choose the moment to land a haymaker Mike Tyson would have been proud of on Davies head knocking the second row to the ground and ensuring Mr Havery had no choice but to dismiss him for a second yellow card offence. ’Chocky’ also saw yellow for his part in proceedings but until that point the game had been played in good spirit and there was certainly plenty of rugby still to be played. But the Yorkshire faithful were certainly not going to forget the incident quickly and seemed more frantic about that than the rest of the action. Unfortunately for Hartlepool Mail man Roy Kelly he took the brunt of the Driffield displeasure but I’m not sure even his thick skin could take being branded one of the West faithful!!

As far as the rugby went things were hotting up and when Cholmondeley took a pass from a tap penalty and fought his way over in the corner on 71 minutes West were only 3 points down and in with a chance of saving the game. That chance came on 77 minutes when Masshedar lined up the penalty goal from a relatively simple position and the rest, as they say, is history.

Truth be told West were not good enough in this game but will rue the missed opportunities to get something out of it. As has been mentioned in previous weeks goal kicking is becoming a serious worry and if you add up the missed kicks today the result could have been different. Driffield seemed to be a well drilled outfit and if they continue to play like this could still mount a promotion challenge, today’s win seeing them just four points away from a playoff place.

For West it isn’t all doom and gloom merely a small setback. We will play better and while this is a step backwards there is a chance to get things back on track next week against Sheffield at Brinkburn. If we can have more of the Morpeth performance than today’s a positive result should be ensured.

West: Masshedar, Thomas, Edwards, Hodgson, Todd, Wallis, Tighe, Carr, Cullinane, Cholmondeley, Rudd, Davies, D Boatman, J Boatman, Sawyer

Tries: Rudd, D Boatman, Sawyer, Cholmondeley
Con: Masshedar

Sinbin: Davies



Driffield: Thompson, Harrison, Dench, Plumridge, Piercy, Birch, Stephenson, Perez, Havler, Yates, Chapman, Cooper, Millar, Cook, Jones.

Tries: Stephenson, Plumridge, Piercy
Cons: Birch 2
Pens: Birch 2
Sin-bin: Perez
Sent-off: Perez

Referee: Steve Havery [Durham]