Pre-season friendly
Another hot day at the Avenue greeted Billingham from the North East. Wharfedale struggled to show any fluency early on and were guilty of some sloppy play and allowed the visitors to score two converted tries in the first 20 minutes to lead by 14 points. Dale then started to improve and a break by Harry Bullough and a kick ahead by James Coulton led to Bullough himself scoring. Ben Blackwell converted.
More shocking play followed by the home side and Billingham touched down again for an unconverted try to leave the score 7 – 19. Dale then started to build through putting pressure on Billingham and from an attacking scrum Omari Kaup-Samuels ran at the defence before passing to Josh Prell who shrugged off tackles to cross the line. An excellent conversion from Blackwell closed the gap to 5 points at half time.
A chip ahead from Oscar Canny was followed up and Bullough grabbed his second converted try to take Dale into the lead. Wharfedale had chances to extend the lead but more frustration followed and it was Billingham who took the honours with a late converted try from their stand-off.