Thornhill Trojans let lead slip after unfortunate hour-long injury delay

The Trojans made a strong start and after 36 minutes held a 16-4 lead, but there was a serious injury to Skirlaugh's Harry Potts which resulted in a one hour delay in play while an ambulance arrived.

The delay seemed to result in Thornhill losing their focus and from this point the game began to slip away from them.

It was a disappointed Trojans team that left the field at full-time. For a long time the game was there for the taking and it could have been the ideal opportunity for them to register a long overdue win.

Man of the match was prop Jake Wilson who was solid throughout, as was full-back Brad Llewellyn.

Thornhill opened the scoring on 10 minutes when the ball was worked at speed out to the wing. Travis Lumb took the final pass and dived over for a try well converted by Joel Gibson.

Casey Johnson then combined with Gibson who sped through the Skirlaugh defence for an unconverted try.

But Thornhill lost the ball on the first tackle as they tried to run the ball away from their own try line, Skirlaugh picked up the loose ball and Tom Saltmere went over.

It was only a momentary lapse from the Trojans as an offload in the tackle put Ryan Mitchell away for a fine try improved by Gibson.

Then came the injury to Gotts with the player laid on the pitch unable to gain his feet. Eventually an ambulance arrived and play was allowed to continue.

As the second half got under way Travis O’Loughlin barged over from close range for Skirlaugh and Alex Gilbey converted. They then drew level when Josh Oliver burst between two defenders to score and Gilbey added the goal.

Both teams exchanged penalty goal attempts to try to break the stalemate, with Ryan Mitchell wide of the mark for Thornhill.

Mitchell was then sin-binned for throwing the ball at an opposing player, but Gilbey was unable to kick the resulting penalty.

Skirlaugh's went down to 12 with Jordan Webster sin-binned for a late challenge and Johnson's penalty goal attempt was off target.

Gilbey did kick a penalty to put Skirlaugh in front and they made sure of their win with Oliver’s try at the end, converted by Gilbey.

• Dewsbury Celtic’s bid to go third in Division Two was thwarted by Milford.

With Shaw Cross Sharks’ game postponed because of a too hard pitch, Cetic were looking to take af=dvantage by climbing the table, but lost out 24-14.

The north Leeds outfit, who had lost 42-12 in Dewsbury, were never behind and, after having led 18-4 at the interval, put paid to a Celtic rally to within four points with a Will Todd try 10 minutes from time, Sam Best landing his fourth goal.

Rob Jones, Ben Brown and Steve Bacon had crossed earlier for Milford while Celtic had to settle for touchdowns by Oliver Thornton, Harry Copley and Matty Ginnelly, one of which Copley converted.