Another defeat for Goole against joint top of the league Old Brodleians on Saturday, with the away team having the edge in a hard-fought encounter. Specifically taking advantage of a lapse in concentration by the home side prior to half time when they scored three converted tries without having to work too hard for the scores. More forced changes for Goole with Rhys Moore starting at scrum half for the first time this season and Josh Malcolmson coming in at centre to replace Sam Smith who moved to the unaccustomed fullback position.
On a fresh and sunny afternoon Goole faced the slight breeze as the evenly matched early spell showed little difference between the quality of the two teams despite their contrasting start to the season. The return of Moore provided Goole with more kicking options as both teams kicked for position in the early stages and it took until the 20th minute for the first points to be scored. Sam Smith gathering a loose ball just inside his own half to wrestle his way through numerous attempted tackles and offload to the supporting Shaun Roberts who went over for the try. The conversion was unsuccessful, but Goole had the opening score and followed it up just 90 seconds later with an excellent second try as they ran the ball from their own 22 following possession from the restart. Once again Smith making the initial break to pass to the impressive Aaron Jerry-Murray on the wing who flew past two defenders before passing to the supporting Josh Malcolmson to sprint over for an excellent try. 10 – 0. Disappointingly Goole knocked on following the restart to give Brods possession and allowed then to show their quality by scoring three converted tries in just five minutes. Whilst Brods opening try was from a straight forward overlap out wide, the second try was a result of a basic missed tackle on halfway and the third, once again after being caught narrow and vulnerable to simple fast hands to the speedy winger out wide. No further scores as Goole disappointingly went to half time trailing 10 – 21.
With the diminishing breeze at their backs Goole kicked off for the second half and started positively with Sam Smith being tackled just short of the try line, but a Brods knock on gave Goole a 5m scrum that Will Townend capitalised on as he picked up at base of the solid scrum to go over for the try, converted by Moore, 17 – 21 after just two minutes of the restart. Goole maintained the pressure on Brods and following another scrum pick up at the base, Townend gained ground to offload to Moore who passed to Josh Beecher on the wing who still had work to do to get over for the converted try and give Goole a deserved 24 – 21 lead after ten minutes of the second half. Disappointingly Goole handed Brods the initiative from the kick off with a reckless penalty that resulted in a try following a spell of pressure and with Charlie Walton also sin-binned, this was a major blow to Goole as Brods recaptured the lead 24 – 26. Brods then capitalised on the player advantage and it took desperate last ditch tackles by Smith and Malcolmson in particular, to prevent Brods scoring as Goole were pinned back, desperately defending their try line. In the end the pressure told as Brods went over for two more converted tries to stretch their lead to 24 – 40 and although Goole pressed for the remainder of the match and came close to scoring on a few occasions, they ran out of time, once again finishing the match on the front foot. Despite the defeat there were lots of very positive aspects to this performance with a single try scoring bonus point being scant reward for the effort put in. With no first team game next week, they can hopefully get some of the injured players back available and get their season up and running.