It was never easy for the Greens, against a battling Hull team who never gave up, but they had just too much class and pace in the backs for the visitors to cope with. The Dalesmen now look forward to a 5th appearance in the Yorkshire Cup Final, and will hope that, at last, the Wharfedale name will be inscribed on ‘t’owd pot’.

The Greens applied pressure from the outset, and it was quite 15 minutes before Hull were allowed an excursion into the home half. But dogged defence – and a couple of border-line decisions by referee Jonathan Owen – denied Wharfedale. The belated breakthrough came when a slick move across the backs culminated in Luke Gray providing the scoring pass for winger Iain Dixon (17). Mark Bedworth converted well from close to the touchline.

Hull began to have much more to say about proceedings, and the Greens had to wait until the 39th minute before collecting the important second try, winger Simon Horsfall’s break creating the opening for centre James Tincknell’s unstoppable charge for the posts, Bedworth accepting the simple conversion for 14-0 at half-time.

Gray’s try (46) in the left corner, again splendidly converted by Bedworth, opened up a commanding looking lead, but now Hull stirred themselves with a vengeance, and piled pressure on the Wharfedale line. A crashing try by their big centre, Laurence Pearce (54), converted by stand-off Greg Lound, combined with a yellow card for Wharfedale flanker Alastair Allen, set alarm bells ringing loudly.

Wharfedale survived, just, without further points conceded, and it was time for diminutive scrum-half Philip Woodhead to take centre stage as the game drew to a conclusion. He darted through the Hull defence before unselfishly slipping a pass to the supporting Richard Brown for the touch-down (69). Minutes later, he was the last line of defence with the imposing shape of Pearce bearing down on a fierce charge for the line. Woodhead’s tackle, preventing an otherwise certain try, earned the biggest cheer of the evening.