Sheffield savour Steel City honours

By MO SHER

Sheffield…………33pts Sheffield T……. 24pts

THE Steel City bragging rights were once again claimed by Sheffield, the hosts taming the Tigers in an entertaining contest at Abbeydale.

Ryan Burrows set the tone early as he used his strength to wriggle across the whitewash, though Tigers soon had a foothold courtesy of a Will Baker penalty.

The physical nature of the contest – a staple in almost all derby clashes – was borne out by the fact that much of the action came in the tight exchanges, with both sides' packs more than willing to front-up.

And the Sheffield setpiece was particularly pumped up, with man-ofthe-match Reece Bartlett being driven over for two scores ahead of the break to open up a 21-10 lead for his side.

When Jake Hicklin crashed over almost immediately after the re-start, the Tigers were staring down the barrel; overturning a 16-point lead would require a 360-degree turnaround in quality, luck and patience.

To their credit, Jack Howieson's group gave it everything and were unfortunate to not leave with at least a losing, or try, bonus point.

From a powerful, slick maul, replacement Louis Townsend was the man to drop on the line and that tilted the momentum in favour of the men from Dore Moor.

They were even able to ride the loss of Joe Fitzsimons to the sin-bin with 20 minutes still to play.

And when Sheffield suffered the same fate – Matthew Adcock the man asked to reflect on his actions – they notched their third try of the after noon to make it a two-point game going into the final ten minutes, enthralling a receptive crowd.

From a tapped penalty, Howieson's charges showed excellent presence of mind to suck in a host of Sheffield defenders, before moving five metres from the point of contact.

From there, the everso-slight change in pace gave Will Bennett the metre of space he needed to reach over and triumphantly dot down.

However, they couldn't quite ram home the advantage they'd worked so hard to build, with Sheffield digging deep to find a semblance of composure that would win them the tie.

Christian Hooper was the hero, the midfielder getting on the end of a number of passes to definitively conclude proceedings and round off a closely-fought contest.

Going into the twoweek seasonal break, this win keeps Sheffield in an all-Yorkshire-based top three in National Two North, alongside Leeds and Rotherham, ahead of a home tie against Hull Ionians early in the new year, with the Tigers heading to the Titans.