On a dry sunny day at Brantingham Park conditions for rugby were excellent in front of a sizeable crowd.
Wharfedale started brightly winning most of the possession and territory but mistakes at the vital moment prevented troubling the score board. Scrums were evenly contested but Wharfedale had an advantage in the lineout, disrupting Hull Ionians set plays.
After 15 minutes Hull Ionians managed to hack the ball out of their half and in the race for the Wharfedale line Will Beecroft was just able to disrupt the Hull Ionians winger causing a knock on over the try line.
After 32 minutes the deadlock was broken, a high tackle penalty gave Hull Ionians the opportunity for an attacking lineout which they executed perfectly, driving hard into the Wharfedale pack, then spinning the ball wide for Cam Burnhill to score just left of the posts, Lewis Minikin adding the extras.
On the stroke of half time, Hull Ionians won an attacking scrum in the Wharfedale half and after several hard drives down the middle, clever ball handling resulted in Sam Pocklington scoring under the posts, Lewis Minikin adding the extras making the score at half time 14-0
The second half started with neither side in the ascendancy until a charged down clearance kick in the 53rd minute resulted an attacking scrum for Hull Ionians who exploited space out wide for Cam Burnhill to score a try, Lewis Minikin making a difficult kick look easy, score 21-0.
From the restart, Wharfedale got some momentum and after several infringements Ben Smith was shown a yellow card and from a resulting lineout, Ben Blackwell was driven over for Wharfedales first try, Robbie Davidson adding the conversion, score 21-7.
Unfortunately minutes later, Hull Ionians took a quick tap penalty and Louis Verity was yellow carded for making the tackle inside 10 metres, Lewis Minikin scoring the resulting penalty making the score 24-7.
In the last 10 minutes Wharfedale brought on all their substitutes and were rewarded almost immediately. From a good Wharfedale scrum, Louis Verity made a break, carried on by Rian Hamilton who off loaded on the floor to Harry Bullough to score out wide, the conversion was missed making the final score 24-12.
Hull Ionians defended extremely well, took their opportunities when available and Wharfedale who worked hard, had their chances but were unable to execute.
The match photographs are available at https://www.flickr.com/photos/128183691@N04/albums/72177720324166843