After a hard fought campaign in this fiercely competitive and prestigious knock out competition, Ripon crashed out to a fitter faster Yarnbury side, who are having perhaps one of their most successful seasons in a decade. With honours even in this season’s two league encounters, both teams winning their away fixtures, Ripon were buoyed by their success on the artificial grass pitch in their past two outings there. The hosts however, gave a stern lesson in defensive cohesion, team interplay at pace and an attacking spirit hitherto a strong component of Ripon’s own game plan.

With their second crushing defeat in two weeks and barely managing to score points into double figures again, The Blues will be having a serious look at player availability, commitment to training and all round enthusiasm to finish this up until recently, impressive season on a high note. With two Counties 2 Yorkshire league games left and a third place to secure, Ripon also have the prospect of a repeat of their Papa John Community Cup success with that campaign due to start in April. With much left to play for, including the potential to lift some silverware again, Ripon do need to sharpen up their act in terms of their game management, resilience and execution. Despite a strong start to this season, The Blues have faded somewhat since the Christmas break and with all the best will in the world just haven’t managed to establish some sustainable good form.

There were in this game, as in previous weeks, many flashes of brilliance and nobody could be singled out for not making the effort. The enthusiasm to compete is still strong, so hopefully the squad can re-find its get up and go and finish strongly over the next two months.
Selection this week again saw a number of challenges with personnel comings and goings and committing to field two competitive teams to fulfil fixtures. With thirteen changes from the previous week’s line up the back line was unrecognisable and whilst packed with talent, didn’t quite manage to find a high gear. Six changes in seven positions didn’t augur well for a cohesive performance, not helped by their inability to train together beforehand. Some comfort was taken from the recall of Flying Fijians Aborosio Sovatabua picked for his pace on the Wing and Saula Take for his no-nonsense Centre play. With the latter despatched with a serious knee injury after just 15 minutes played, The Blues’ heads went down and try as they might, the backs didn’t recover their stride. Colt Zak Kirby was the third recall in the backs to occupy the other Wing and excited when in possession, just didn’t get enough quality ball to show his pace and evasive skills. Henry Hanson switched to Full Back and James Cooper guested at Number 10 in the absence of regular Nick Daley. Harry Drane was the only back to retain his original starting position at Scrum Half and Tom Graham made up the final back position at Inside Centre to add some oomph to the midfield.

The pack saw a couple of reshuffles to accommodate Tom Hesmondhalgh at Open Side and bring his hunter-killer instinct to the game and Nick “Sad Yank” Perez at Number 8 to add his “stop ‘em dead” tackling and heavy duty carrying potential. Keith Anderson retained his place at Loose Head and Skipper Pearce returned to the grunt at Hooker after a couple of weeks’ respite in the back row. Adam Newcombe stretched his comfort zone by propping at Tight Head and the second row remained unchanged with Joe Middlemiss and Iain Barker locking the scrum and stoking the boiler house. Harry Veitch was the sole remnant from last week’s back row, stepping across to Blind Side to give “Hesh” free rein on the Open Side. The forward orientated bench also saw recalls for pile driver Charles Britton and Jacob Drane to blend in wherever. The latter settling nicely into the Number 10 berth later on in the game and not disappointing. George Evans took the last spot on the bench and with his second half impactful performance must be begging questions as to his starting line-up potential.

Ripon drew first blood with a James Cooper penalty goal on two minutes after a home player was judged off side from a clearance kick. Whilst Ripon looked to be getting the better of the refereeing decisions in the opening plays, Ripon’s advantage was soon cut short after a penalty touch kick and line out saw a cruel but perfectly timed interception of a long pass in midfield. The visitors were aghast at the affront and no tackle was forthcoming, so the speedy home Outside Centre ran in unopposed. The conversion gave the hosts the lead of 7 – 3 on four minutes.

Nearing the end of the first quarter, Ripon reduced the deficit with another Cooper penalty goal for the hosts unceremoniously scragging Harry Drane like a rag doll. Incensed by the outrage, the diminutive Scrum Half went on to be accused of a high tackle within two minutes and Yarnbury kicked a penalty goal to extend their lead to 10 – 6. The second quarter saw more of the Ripon of old, with a settling set piece with Perez picking from a stable scrum base and Joe Middlemiss confidently ruling the skies at the line out. A flurry of penalties in favour of Ripon gained them possession and ground, but from a deep 22 drop out from The Blues after a home counter attack, Yarnbury launched their most spectacular attack of the game in which seemingly every player was involved. The 36th minute converted try took the score to 17 – 6, remained there until half time and gave Ripon a few things to think about. In a not dissimilar position from last week, Ripon felt confident of redressing the balance in the second half and pressing for the win, but unfortunately the deeds weren’t quite up to the desire.

Once the second half started, Yarnbury looked more spritely and in command of the open play. A couple of twitches at scrum time didn’t give Ripon the quality possession that they needed and soon it looked like a one way system was developing. In the first ten minutes of the half, the hosts increased their score with ease with two more converted tries for a 31 – 6 lead. It was this passage of play that unfortunately defined the way Ripon were to see out the match. Defensive alignment and communications became less cohesive by the minute and so the nippy home backs were able to bob and weave their way with relative ease. Insult was added to injury after a high tackle allegation involving Oscar Way enabled the hosts to tap and go swiftly for an unconverted try and 36 – 6 on 54 minutes.

A disastrous restart melee saw Ripon’s Hesmondhalgh and Graham indisposed through both acquiring bleeding head wounds, the former ending his game there and the latter bravely soldiering on. In the confusion arising from the necessary reshuffling, the hosts pounced again with another unconverted try for 41 – 6 and Ripon needing more than a prayer to stay in the game. At 62 minutes, the icing on Ripon’s cake came with the sin-binning of Anderson for an alleged armless tackle. Fortunately Evan’s presence at scrum time was sufficient to limit the damage to the set piece any further.

Ripon’s never say die attitude however, continued towards the final minutes of the game and from a penalty opportunity in the home 22, Drane, Abo and Harry Veitch linked well for the latter to score a consolation try. Cooper’s near miss of the conversion attempt made it 41 – 11.
Unfortunately there was another team left on the contest and not wanting to finish on a low note, Yarnbury managed to squeeze in a further two converted tries with The Blues pretty much out on their feet, for a final score of 55 – 11. The final whistle came as a welcome relief to the Ripon team who had worked so hard to keep in contention but just couldn’t get the breaks to score the points. Yarnbury, on the contrary, showed why their league campaign this season has been so successful, by playing with pace and confidence and using their AGP to good effect.

On a negative point, Ripon’s penalty count again exceeded the target of 10 at 14. Whilst all The Blue’s points came from penalties against the hosts; 36 of the opposition’s came from either directly awarded penalties for Ripon infringements, or by taking advantage of poorly executed penalties awarded to Ripon. Keeping the referee on side, maintaining discipline and 15 players on the pitch and precisely executing every move, have to be worked on. There is plenty more to play for, yet and so hopefully the Ripon squad will keep up the momentum in the training paddock and keep going to the bitter end. Best wishes to Saula Take for speedy recovery from his knee injury and to Toms Hesh and Graham for their wounds healing.

Next week, Ripon are back into league action for pressure of a different kind, with a Yorkshire Division Two tie versus Bradford and Bingley. Again, looking to avenge a narrow away defeat, The Blues will be pulling out all stops to get back to winning ways. All supporter for the club’s last home league game of the season will be very welcome for the 3.00 kick off.