NORTHALLERTON first team returned to winning ways with an away win at West Park Leeds by a score of 26-28.

North travelled away with numerous regular first team players missing due to injury, fortunately Leeds were also short of numbers due their own injury problems.

Norths replacements again proved their worth with a positive and spirited display. Chris Anderson, Alex Wallis and Harry O’Connor all stepping up to the mark impressively.

North opened the scoring after only seven minutes thanks to Sam Taylor’s pace out wide which saw him glide past two covering players to score ten yards in from the flag. Jedd Bainbridge added the conversion from a difficult angle.

Three minutes later Leeds then showed their prowess out wide with an overlap to score a unconverted try in the corner.

North went straight back onto the offensive and were rewarded less than three minutes later with a opportunistic interception try from Ashley Rio under the posts.

After twenty five minutes North were only two metres away from another try but squandered the chance only for Leeds to go up the other end of the pitch and score under the posts.

On the half hour mark a bullet like pass from Doug Mulholland at the base of a ruck found Rio who quickly shipped the ball out to Taylor, who immediately shipped it onto Jonny Franks to touch down for Norths third converted try.

Just before half time the dancing feet of Joe Osleton were on show again with some amazing footwork out wide to set up another chance, but Mulholland unluckily knocked the ball on. Half time 12-21

Two minutes into the second half it looked like North had sealed the win when James Hopkin went over from five yards out unopposed as the Leeds team inexplicably stopped believing the ball was elsewhere. Bainbridge added his fourth conversion out of four to put North 12-28 up.

For the next thirty minutes the game ebb and flowed with neither team crossing the try line.

However in the seventy first minute Hopkin was yellow carded for an alleged illegal clearout at a ruck.

In the next seven minutes with North down to 14 players and two of them injured, Leeds took complete control and ran in two converted tries to go only two points behind.

North however dug deep and with youngster Wallis debuting in the front row, North took control of of the final scrum and ran the clock down for the victory.

Man of the match was awarded to Jacob Sankey.

Next week there is no first team fixtures which will give North a chance to rest their injured players.

The next game is at home to Wetherby on February 9th with kick off at 2.15pm.

Again there was no second team fixture as this time the opposition cancelled on Thursday and an alternate opponent could not be found.