Varsity Rugby: York 1sts 14-31 Hull 1sts

York’s rugby 1sts went down 31-14 to a strong, very physical Hull side, giving the travelling team a rare three points.

Hull were strong going forward and very aggressive in the tackle and York struggled to compete with their physicality. York’s chances of victory had already been significantly slashed before kick-off as most of their regular starters were unavailable. Of the squad that lost narrowly to this same Hull side earlier in the week only four members remained.

York did take the lead on the half hour however. Hull had already kicked their way into a 3-0 lead when Rich Rhodes finished off a determined attacking move and gave York the first try of the game. Ed Harris’ conversion made it 7-3.

Hull hit straight back at the home side and before long had regained the lead. Their inside centre, whose stature drew him the nickname ‘maximuscle’ from the crowd, powered through two tackles to score and then converted himself to make it 10-7.

Some sloppy defending from York allowed Hull in once more before the end of the half and the home side went it 17-7 behind at half-time.

York continued to battle hard in the second half but Hull’s sheer physicality was clearly wearing them out.

They started the half well and were almost in for a try when a great counter-attacking burst from Matt Pollen saw him running into space. He offloaded to Conan Osbourne who didn’t quite have the pace to finish and was tackled into touch.

A prolonged period of York pressure followed but they were unable to convert this into points and Hull eventually regained control of the game.

They hit York with two quickfire trys to dash any lingering hopes of victory. Their inside-centre powered over once again and then a stroke of luck took the scores up to 31-7.

A kick that looked to be heading straight into touch blew back into play and bounced fortunately for the Hull player, who collected and went over to score. An excellent conversion took Hull’s tally into the thirties.

York managed a well-executed late consolation as reward for their battling effort. A well-weighted chip and chase from ‘Norwegian Christian’ saw him go over for possibly the best try of the game. The conversion rounded off the scoring at 31-14.

Stand-in captain Steve Bryan spoke to Vision after the game, saying; ‘Our 1sts played them last week but this is basically a 2nds side. We missed a lot of tackles but our effort was great, we fought like tigers. We were professional and we rattled them.’