Huddersfield YMCA 22 Ilkley 12

Ilkley’s hopes of a quick return to Twickenham via victory in the Yorkshire Shield came to an abrupt end at a sunny Laund Hill on Saturday, as their makeshift side came off second best against a strong YMCA team.

Why there were so many players unavailable is a mystery, but the Ilkley starting 15 had so many new faces in it, it resembled a second team and for the first half of a scrappy encounter, that is how they played, going in 17-0 down at the break.

The weather was exceptionally cold, but the pitch was in good condition as YMCA kicked off.

Their skipper Mark Whitehead was first on the scoresheet as he finished off a smart passing movement after the home centres picked up a loose Ilkley pass.

Gavin Stead converted to give his side a 7-0 lead, then went on a mazy 50-metre run, to score a second try, again when Ilkley lost midfield possession with a poor up and under.

At 12-0 ahead, the home backs were causing the visitors all sorts of problems.

Ilkley found it almost impossible to put former rugby league star Adam Ryder down and had stand-off Ed Barber passed earlier more often, his side would have out of sight by half-time.

As it was, Ilkley conceded just one more score before the break, Whitehead claiming his second try, when Barber and Stead combined to slice through the Ilkley defence.

The second half started brightly enough for Ilkley and stout defence saw them twice held up over the line Despite the pressure the next score went to the hosts, as Barber’s explosive turn of speed brought him a try.

Despite Stead missing three conversions, YMCA were 22 points up and a victory for Ilkley seemed impossible.

To their credit they fought back and with the welcome return of Ben Fear to the front row, the forwards started to take control.

Iain McKenzie thought he had scored, but was penalised for a double movement.

Isaac Scholes did crash over shortly afterwards with Tom Collard converting.

McKenzie made no mistake on the second time of asking, reducing the deficit to 22-12 Winning the second half is no use if the first is lost so heavily, but all credit to this scratch team, which never gave up trying.

Temour Ahmed had a fine game in the line-out and JH Johnson was the pick of the backs.