Ripon 8 Keighley 51

KEIGHLEY turned on the style to overpower Ripon in a one-sided victory.

Ripon had started well and forced Keighley into conceding an early penalty that outside half Tim Jobling converted.

But after that Keighley raised the tempo of the game, a series of slick attacks giving wing forward Tom Lowther a run into the corner.

Continued pressure from the Keighley pack and hard running from their two big centres forced Ripon into offside positions and a string of penalties. Alex Brown managed to land two of them.

Centre Adam Horsfall then went over out wide on the stroke of half-time to increase Keighley’s advantage to 13 points after a break out of defence featuring centre Ben Blackwell and No. 8 Hamish Pratt.

They forced the pace from the off after the break and Horsfall went in the corner for his second try after a quick pass from a five-metre scrum. Brown added the difficult conversion.

With the forwards grinding out the hard yards and their big centres running good lines it was only a matter of time before the Ripon defence was breached again.

Prop Olly Sugden powered his way up field, drawing in a number of defenders he managed to slip the ball to his brother, second row Leigh who scored under the posts, again converted by Brown.

With a large, unassailable lead, Keighley were confident enough to throw the ball about and looked to off-load at every opportunity.

Full back Rob Wilkinson joined the back line and carved open a stretched defence to score a try that was converted by Brown.

Winger Alan Ebbrell then finished Keighley’s scoring with two tries after good approach work by Wilkinson, Brown, on form with the boot, added both of the difficult conversions. Ripon, who had grafted all afternoon, never gave up and through sheer effort and determination winger Ben Buckley got his just rewards with a consolation try in the corner.