Sat 30 Oct 2021
The team travelled over to Skipton in a confident mood with the strongest looking team sheet of the year. Atmosphere was great before the game in the changing room with clear instructions to concentrate on our own job. Starting the first half it was clear early on the strong Baildon forwards pack were dominant in the scrum and lineout. A try early on from good build up play from the forwards let fly-half Jack Ryan have some time on the ball at 10 and with a 3-man 30 metre missed pass put flier Kyle Turley in for try on debut out wide.
With a dominant lineout Baildon kicked to the corner and a good rolling maul led to Callum Harris getting on the score sheet in his first game back after the enforced COVID break. The forwards kept the ball well and were working well in their pods but were sometimes guilty of doing too much and not letting the ball go to the backs when Skipton had been sucked in by good forward play. One more try from a succession of pick and go’s from the forwards led to Toisin ‘T’ Ojikutu powering over from close range. A good first half but a definite feeling from the backs we had left a few points out there.
Going into the half time the message from Ruffy was clear. The forwards although dominant was keeping hold of the ball slightly too long and we needed to start playing outside of 10. With the message clear the 2nd half started in a similar fashion with dominant set pieces leading Baildon to have good field position. Good build up play found the ‘eager to impress’ Mo Gaibee who crashed over for his try sealing a great performance from him proving just how strong our competition is within the club.
With the points racking up for Baildon and Skipton starting to tire, Baildon finally realised we had the best backline of the season and started to use them to great effect. Good running from the centres of Paddy Horrigan on debut and Adam ‘Frenchy’ France let Matty Langstaff, also on debut in for another try. When we got the ball to the backs the points started flowing with Jack Ryan running in Baildon’s 6th try of the game. (Maybe Ruffy had a point, and we should have listened to him earlier!) As the game started to be more one sided it became a little feisty at points with Josh ‘Bully’ Bull taking an enforced 10-minute rest halfway through the 2nd half. With the dominant scrum giving man of the match Josh Wata plenty of time on the ball, the backs set up ‘Frenchy’ who didn’t take the option of the easy pass instead decided to bulldoze his way through 3 players scoring a well-earned try after a great game from him.
With strong performances all round it was great to see new faces added to the team, fitting in so well. Strong debuts from all 3 of the new players Kyle, Paddy and Matty who made the backline look very solid in defence and attack. Onwards and upwards building on the dominant performance but also realising we probably left a few points out there if we had used our strengths a little more wisely
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