Thornhill Trojans pile up half century of points in first NCL win of season

​Having not fulfilled their previous fixture, Lions arrived at Overthorpe Park looking to start a rebuilding process. However, they were faced with a Trojans team which appears to be finally clicking into gear and moved off the foot of the Division One table.

The hosts ran in nine tries, which included hat-tricks for Joel Gibson and Ryan Mitchell and it was the latter who entertained the Thornhill fans the most with two spectacular long range efforts.

The Trojans were fantastic throughout and made their intentions clear from the outset when Jordan Ward raced over for the opening try after Joel Gibson and Bailey Lee had combined to move the ball left at speed.

From the restart Gibson collected and without missing a beat set off on a run to outpace the Featherstone defenders to go over for a try.

It was such class play that resulted in Gibson being named as official man of the match. He converted his own try.

Gibson turned the screw further when a combination of quick thinking and pace created the next score as he sprinted 30 metres to touch down and once again converted.

Gibson then turned creator when his pass put the supporting Oli Lightfoot over for a converted try. Ryan Mitchell was next to go over out wide.

Thornhill were then given a wake up call when caught off guard with Dean Gamble allowed too much room as he scored a try that was goaled by Harley Axe to make it 26-6 at the interval.

Gibson stretched the home lead with a penalty after the break and this was followed by the first of three sin-binnings for Lions as the referee clamped down on any back chatting to him, Gamble being the first to be shown a yellow card.

It was while the Lions were down to 12 men that Gibson completed his hat-trick after Mitchell took play forward and despite being tackled by two players, managed to slip out a pass to put Gibson over.

Gibson converted as the referee showed his second yellow card of the game. This time it was half-back Liam Kay who spoke out of turn to the referee.

Featherstone then had their third player sin-binned with James Metcalf seeing yellow for making reckless contact with a Thornhill player.

Brad Llewellyn broke clear for the hosts and sent out a pass which put Travis Lumb over for an unconverted try in the corner.

In the closing stages Mitchell stole the show with two spectacular long range tries.

For the first of them Mitchell picked up the ball on the Thornhill 20-metre line and sprinted clear to hold off the chasing Featherstone defenders, using his pace to complete the break and score the try. Gibson converted.

A melee then broke out close to the Thornhill posts after a challenge on Thornhill's Llewellyn. Once order had been restored Featherstone were awarded a penalty, but lost the ball, Mitchell picked up and sprinted 90 metres to score his second long range try, completing his hat-trick. Gibson converted.

Late in the game George Nuttall scored a consolation try which Axe converted. But the referee soon blew for full-time and Thornhill were allowed to celebrate their first win of the season.

Match Sponsor was Wayne Nicholson and Phil Robson.

Trojans: 1 Brad Llewellyn; 2 Travis Lumb, 3 Jordan Ward, 4 Ryan Mitchell, 5 Richard Llewellyn; 6 Bailey Lee, 7 Joel Gibson; 8 Jake Hickling, 9 Oli Boocock, 10 Josh Hartshorne, 11 Oli Lightfoot, 12 Ryan Hardcastle, 13 Harvey Roberts. Subs: 20 Liam Harley, 15 Ewan McDonald, 16 Anthony Broadhead (not used), 17 Oli Brown.