Plucky Grovians play their part as Keighley march on

GIVEN that struggling Old Grovians could only name one player on their replacements' bench – and even he had a broken nose – and that Keighley had won their previous 18 league matches, there was a certain inevitability about this derby result.

Keighley scored eight tries and fly half Alex Brown landed seven out of eight conversions as they continued their pursuit of leaders West Leeds for the championship – they meet at Blue Hill Lane on April 23 – but the home side caught the eye for their plucky resistance.

They even took the lead in the third minute with No 8 Christian Baines' seventh try in three matches but the hosts too often tackled high as the visitors showed off their handling skills from backs and forwards. alike

However, it was a day to focus on Old Grovians' short and long-term future after three promotions in their first seven seasons of league rugby.

Champions of Yorkshire Four in 2012-13 and of Three last season, following an initial campaign in 2008-09 when they were runners-up in Yorkshire 5B, the last thing Old Grovians want is to go straight back down to the ninth tier.

With four matches left, the Apperley Bridge club are tenth in the table on 38 points, 16 ahead of second-from-bottom Knottingley, who have a game in hand.

Another win should see Grovians safe, and they might not even need that given other results, but their assistant coach Dan Nulty said: "Staying up would be a bigger achievement than going up was last season.

"To say that we have 15 players out is probably a conservative estimate, and ten of those are first-choice players.

"We had to name a player on the bench who had his nose straightened in midweek (Jaskaran Deu), and we had a 49-year-old in Dave Roberts playing in the second row, partnering his son Eric."

Apart from those who didn't pull their boots on, Grovians had walking wounded in hooker Matt Worrall (knee), winger Jonathan Gilbert (knee), No 8 Baines (groin) and prop Charles Cockshott (knee).

Nulty added: "I was proud of the efforts of the boys today."

Off the pitch, there are still no facilities at Elm Tree Farm other than a large storage unit which contains such things as post protectors and flags.

Nulty said: "We are in negotiations with a company to buy some temporary accommodation – four changing rooms covering 4,000 square feet – from Woodhouse Grove School that were damaged in the recent floods.

"It would cost us £60,000-£70,000 but we hope to get help from the RFU – we have a meeting with them on Wednesday – the school and Bradford Council, and ultimately we hope to have more permanent facilities at Elm Tree Farm to secure our future in the medium term."

Keighley's player-coach Hamish Pratt said of their win: "It was the sort of result that we were hoping for but we have one or two things to work on in training.

"It is a journey and we just want to keep on improving week by week, and it was great to see lads from our Stags team, such as Danny Drake, who was making his debut, and Joe Atkinson, coming through in this match and making an impact."

Old Grovians, who have gone back to using the school as their changing base rather than the adjacent Apperley Bridge Playing Fields on grounds of cost, had first use of the breeze and capitalised on being awarded two penalties with Baines' catch and drive try.

However, in the sixth minute a bullocking run by centre Adam Horsfall levelled the scores, Brown converting on an afternoon when he missed only one shot at goal.

Three minutes later, flanker Shaun Minikin finished off a flowing attack, in which prop Craig Spencer was prominent, to put Keighley 12-5 in front.

Superb hands almost created a second try for Old Grovians in the 15th minute, only for a wild pass to nip that attack in the bud but that foray proved the exception to the rule for the home side.

Visiting wingers Jack Atkinson and Luke Carter then threatened, and this second instance paved the way for centre Allan Ebbrell's try in the 19th minute as Keighley made it 19-5.

The temporary loss of hooker Will Armitage with an ankle injury only proved a minor hindrance, and it was 33-5 by half-time as lock Leigh Sugden and Horsfall, after good footwork when he cut back inside, scored tries four and five as the bonus point was garnered.

Even the sin-binning of flanker Tom Lowther for playing the ball on the floor in first-half stoppage time was not costly.

Centre Anthony Griffin showed that Old Grovians were still a threat ten minutes into the second half via his ability to glide past tacklers, but that was their last attack of note as Keighley added three more tries, despite generally taking their foot off the gas.

Horsfall completed his hat-trick in the 55th minute, Minikin bagged his second via a lung-busting run from halfway 12 minutes later, and replacement winger Sam Walker, back at Rose Cottage after spells at Huddersfield and Cleckheaton, wrapped the try-scoring up in the 72nd minute.

However, there was almost another try between the scores of Minikin and Walker when Brown kicked intelligently towards the left corner, only for the ball to bounce too high and just evade Carter.