OTLEY skipper Adam Malthouse wants to draw a line under the first half of their National League Two North season.

After a 47-17 defeat at home to leaders Leeds Tykes, second row Malthouse confessed: “It is now a clean slate for the second half of the season. Forget the first half of the season because it is now about how we finish the season.

“We have everyone to play bar Leeds and we have some very winnable games at home.”

In front of a season’s best crowd of 467, 170 of whom attended the pre-match luncheon, Otley started confidently and led 5-0 via a 12th-minute try by full back Samuel Taylor and could have scored more.

Malthouse said: “We were superb in the first 15 minutes and really took the game to them.

“We deserved that score, and there were a couple of times where we could have taken the goal option, but with the occasion of Leeds coming here we wanted to test them early doors and see what they were like up front.

“Unfortunately, things really didn’t go our way and we came up a little bit short, but we really dug in, and the effort was there in abundance.

“Maybe they should have got a yellow card in that first 15 minutes for cumulative penalties, but I don’t want to use that as an excuse, and we must learn that when we get in their 22 we must come away with points more often regardless of who the opposition are.”

Leeds went in front with a penalty try in the 15th minute and didn’t really look back, adding first-half tries by full back Kieran Davies, winger Jacob Mounsey and, from a pushover, scrum half Will Hardwick, with fly half Seremaia Turagabecki landing two conversions.

Leading 26-5 at half-time, the visitors added tries from lock Charles Friend, replacement Henry Macnab and flanker Jonathan Teague, with Turagabecki (1) and Davies (2) kicking the goals.

However, Otley played a large part in a thoroughly entertaining clash, scoring second-half tries by flanker Sam Hodge, from a tap penalty, and a beauty at the death from fly half Eddie Crossland, who added the conversion.

Leeds scored from three of their first four attacks against hosts who dropped two places to 10th, and Malthouse admitted: “The clinicalness of Leeds is the difference between the top teams and where they are and where we are at the minute.

“Maybe that is our game management, maybe we need a few tweaks here and there, but they scored 47 points so we must go back to the drawing board and look at our attack and how we can punish teams.”

Looking at 2022-23 as a whole, however, Malthouse said: “We are slowly getting there, and we are a better team now that we were at the beginning of the season, and you also have to take into consideration the players that we have lost and the players that we have brought in.

“We have brought in a young group of talented players, so they are going to take time to bed in and get used to our league, and you can still see that in games like here when we should have put our foot on their throats a bit more and been a bit more decisive in attack.

“However, overall, I am delighted with how the players have conducted themselves throughout the season and we always aspire to get better week in and week out.

“Our hooker Ryan Gibson was our best player by a country mile, while our outside backs of Jacob Holmes and Ben Dinsdale played well, as did our lock Chris Jackson, while George Bowen got through a lot of work when he came on and is an example of players taking their opportunities.”

Malthouse left the field injured after half an hour and said: “My back injury is a long-term problem. I have had it for several years and on previous occasions it has been difficult.

“With my work as a gardener, I cannot take too many risks with my well-being.”

Otley, who are not in action when the division resumes on January 6, are next in action on Saturday, January 13 at Sheffield Tigers.