Wetherby were looking to build upon a hard fought victory the week before, as they welcomed Barnsley to Grange Park. The game was initially supposed to be played at Barnsley's ground but for a reason I failed to found out, it was hosted by Wetherby instead. The hosts were falling even deeper into their injury chaos as they name three forwards on the replacements bench.

Wetherby started brightly and hammered at the Barnsley door for the first five minutes. James Gibson and George Gilbert both made good early yards as Wetherby bought a penalty in front of the posts. Alex Dus fluffed his lines unfortunately, and let Barnsley off the hook. Barnsley escaped their territory and took a well structured quick line-out to catch Wetherby napping. Some indecision in an inexperienced back line allowed the Barnsley centres to skip around the outside of the Wetherby defences and score a try completely against the run of play. 0-5.

Almost immediately from the kick off Wetherby infringed and reacted slowly to a quick penalty and were beaten in a similar vein to the first try. Barnsley's impressive inside centre showed a fleet foot to create space for the winger, who skipped through a couple of missed tackles to score. After ten minutes of dominance, Wetherby were soon up against it. 0-10.

Barnsley were certainly a determined bunch and were spear-headed in the forwards by their powerful number eight, but on the whole Wetherby's tackling was much improved from recent weeks with George Gilbert's kamikaze approach matched in the back row with Harry Johnson's scything at the knees. Both were joined by Jim Greenwood who had earlier shown a McCann-esque disregard for parenting in order to don the red and white!

It was at this point that spectator chris Atkinson was seen shuffling after his girlfriend singing the coral Windows advert to her, in order to try and win back her affections. Wetherby pushed forward and were lacking direction before taz of Tasmania Liam Hogan got the ball, and with an outstanding show of strength, forced his way over the line shortly before the break.

Half time: Wetherby 7-10 Barnsley

After reiterating that we needed to play with structure, Wetherby started the second half brightly. Jonny Day put in a Stirling shift playing out of position at outside centre, and was helped by some strong running lines from Gareth Plant and Barney Roberts. The forwards made good yards through powerhouse Elliott Lloyd Kinsey Griffiths, and the born again Bradley Mason, and set up a short ball for Liam to grab his second of the game. 14-10.

Barnsley's resurgence into the game coincided with a Wetherby capitulation. Barney Roberts was lucky to escape a red card for a horror spear tackle, and Mattie Chappel approached the ruck area like it was a new mattress as he gleefully flopped into every one he went to.
Despite a couple of last ditch try savers from Liam Hogan and Stephen Hoather, Barnsley forced over to regain the lead. 14-17.

As if shell-shocked, Wetherby had a five minute lapse that cost them any chance of winning the game. Firstly they allowed the powerful Barnsley number eight to bundle over from a shortened line-out, and were then caught flat footed as a fine solo try stretched out Barnsley's lead. 14-29.

In a familiar tale of deja vu, the Wetherby response was too little too late. Strong sniping play from Jack Radcliffe put the pack on the front foot, allowing Krang from the teenage mutant ninja turtles (Myles Oates) to give Wetherby the possibility of gaining something from the game. Unfortunately Alex Dus missed the conversion from smack bang in front of the posts. 19-29.

Wetherby pushed and got within 5 metres of the Barnsley line in search of a losing bonus point, but it wasn't to be. A tighter game than the score line suggests, and a gutsy performance from a re-shuffled team.

MoM: Liam Hogan - good to have the hairball back.

DoD: Barney Roberts - very lucky to escape a red card!