1st half performance costs Crusaders the game.

With five changes in the backline from last weeks win against Castleford it wasn’t too surprising that the defence wasn’t particularly well organised at times. There were however far too many first up tackles being missed. One of which enabled the Rowntrees hooker to burst through the defensive line and offload to a supporting runner to score an early try. The conversion attempt missed.
Initially Wetherby responded well to this setback and the pack made some good yards with a series of drives close to the ruck. This culminated with Will Dutton barging his way over from short range. Gareth Plant converted to level the scores.

Things then took a turn for the worse for Wetherby with ex 1st team skipper Nick Olte tearing his Achilles tendon. Best wishes for a speedy recovery mate.

Wetherby were controlling things up front reasonably well but finding it difficult to progress downfield with the Rowntrees back 3 returning clearance kicks with interest.

Towards the end of the first half Rowntrees scored 2 more tries through their backline with the Wetherby tackling not really being up to scratch.

At halftime the score was 19-7 to Rowntrees but Wetherby would have the wind in their favour in the second half and with tighter defence were aiming to use their advantage in the forwards to force their way back into the game.

As it turned out the wind dropped and heavy rain set in for the whole second half. This made handling the ball very difficult. It partially negated Rowntrees advantage in the backs but also made it difficult for Wetherby to make much progress other than by playing some pretty basic direct rugby.

This actually worked very well with AJ, Dutton, Bartle and Dave Harrison all making decent inroads into the Rowntrees ranks. Gareth Plant and Gyles Seward also made a number of good carries in the heavy traffic.

By this point prop Matt Haskayne had replaced Chris Warburton who had cracked a couple of ribs. Matt was wearing a pair of ridiculously tight shorts that he must have found in the U9s lost property but this didn’t stop him from contributing to Wetherby’s forward dominance. It probably put some of the Rowntrees players off a bit too, not a pretty sight.

So with Mick Youlden dictating play from scrum half Wetherby were battering away at the Rowntrees line and Matt Bartle forced his way over from close range. Gareth Plant converted and Wetherby were right back in the game.

Rowntrees had other ideas though and despite the very wet conditions they put together a slick backline move to get outside the improved Wetherby backline defence to score in the corner and take a 24-14 lead.

There were to be no further scores with both sides going close on occasion only to be stopped by some decent defence.

Thanks to Rowntrees for a hard fought game. They were a good all round side and certainly had the edge in the backline on the day.
The Crusaders can be pretty pleased with the second half performance but they had put themselves in a big hole with some weak defending early doors and will need to tighten things up in that area.