With our scrawny Pre-Madonna winger on a cute weekend away with his gentleman lovers, it has fallen on somebody else to write this weeks match report. You'll be pleased to know that this one will be more legible than the usual tripe you have to read.

As all three teams welcomed Harrogate Pythons to Grange Park, the 1st XV prepared to face a pythons side who had run second-place Thorne close the week before. The ever reliable BBC weather forecast had predicted the storm of the century for Saturday afternoon, and with Harrogate having one of the bigger packs in the league it looked like it could be a tough day at the office.

A scrappy first ten minutes set the tone for the afternoon: handling errors, forward passes, infringements at the ruck, and lots of scrums! Harrogate had much of the early pressure as Wetherby used the tried and tested technique of soaking up early pressure before counter punching to good effect. The rope-a-dope tactic didn't last too long however as Wetherby entered the Pythons half. A strong run down the left hand side from Barney Roberts secured his number 11 shirt, before he set Andrew Trotman free. A run straight from the Trotman textbook, step the winger before nearly messing the move up with a ridiculous pass. To everyone's amazement the pass fell into the hands of 'the real Jim shady' (James Greenwood) to power over the line. 5-0.

A solid platform from the scrum and strong carries from the forwards opened spaces in the Harrogate defence; spaces ideally made for Grange Park's favourite son, Conor Sheridan, to score Wetherby's second try. Conor recovered from the embarrassing slip on his first conversion attempt, to add the extras with his second. 12-0.

Wetherby's pressure continued to tell as shortly before half time, after several botched efforts, the table toppers made good use of an overlap to send Will Jefferson over. 19-0 at half time.

At half time the weather must have got colder because in the second half the referee waved his arms about at random intervals whilst blowing his whistle, and put his hands in his pockets three times. However, when a scrum was given 22 meters from the Pythons line shortly after half time, the 'fat but functional' Wetherby front row tore through their counterparts to give George Gilbert another gift. 26-0.
Wetherby's final try of the day showed exactly why Liam Hogan had forced his way back into the first team, powerful running and a deft offload into the arms of the bizarrely dressed Myles Oates, who finished under the sticks. The poor lad can't dress himself properly without his girlfriend there. 33-0.

Pythons applied pressure in the last twenty minutes to pin Wetherby into a corner. Wetherby defended their line valiantly but with help from the referee's hand warming techniques and good persistence and strength from the pythons forwards, they got their reward with a try from their fourth consecutive driving maul. 33-7.

MoM - Mattie Chappell. When the wind gets behind those ears, there's no stopping him!

DoD - Will Jefferson. Perfectly worked long line-out off the top, beautiful backs move to create the overlap only for Rodney Trotter to knock it on!