Thornhill Trojans pulled off a crucial victory over Eastmoor Dragons in their quest for Premier Division survival. With Thornhill’s season rapidly running out of games this victory saw them drawn level with Castleford Panthers on league points and leap frog above them by virtue of points difference. Thornhill are now out of the bottom three relegation places.

Eastmoor arrived in Overthorpe Park as the Premier Division’s bottom club. With only two league victories to date the Wakefield team were already relegated. But despite this they did put up a stern resistance and made Thornhill battle for the full game.

Johnny Campbell crosses for the last of his two tries.

The game started very as a very scrappy encounter with far too many high tackles evident. As a result play was never really allowed to develop due to the stop start nature of the game and the very high penalty count.

Thornhill took advantage of penalties in their favour to keep putting points on the board courtesy of the boot of James Craven. Craven kicked two penalty goals for the Trojans inside the games first ten minutes before tempers boiled over.

Once order had been restored the referee sent Scott Green and Eastmoor’s Christopher Hayward to the sin bin. The penalty was awarded to Thornhill and James Craven kicked his third goal of the game.

Man of the match for Thornhill was Johnny Campbell for his two try haul and impressive go forward on attack. The first of Campbell’s tries was a result of good work from player coach Scott Dyson.

With Eastmoor on the attack and pressing the Trojans try line Scott Dyson intercepted a pass. Dyson set off on a run which took him out of Thornhill’s half of the field and towards the try line. As the Eastmoor defence moved in on him Dyson got a pass out to the supporting Liam Morley. Morley was hauled down but Johnny Campbell managed to keep the momentum going by sprinting over the line to score. The move had seen Thornhill cover the full length of the field. James Craven converted.

A further James Craven penalty goal saw the Trojans lead 14-0 at the interval.

It was Scott Dyson who was also instrumental in creating Johnny Campbell’s second try of the game. A towering kick from Scott Dyson found touch and was ruled to have been a 40:20 by the referee. Thornhill were given head and feed at the scrum. The ball came straight out of the scrum and into the path of the charging Johnny Campbell. Campbell timed his run to perfection and sailed over for a try which James Craven converted.

Now trailing by 20 points Eastmoor managed to score their first score when they performed a run around close to the try line. There were appeal for a knock on from Thornhill but after consulting his touch judge the referee ruled that Andrew Philips had scored a try. The goal was missed.

Danny Lee receives his marching orders.

It was while on attack that Danny Lee was penalised and shown the yellow card. Lee’s offence was that he threw the ball at an opponent. Lee was shortly followed into the sin bin by Eastmoor’s Christopher Hayward. This was Hayward’s second visit of the game to the sin bin and his offence this time was persistent high tackles.

The result was really put beyond doubt by Anthony Broadhead when he scored a try as a result of some quick thinking.

With play close to the Eastmoor line Broadhead picked up the ball from the acting half position and powered over from close range despite the attentions of several Eastmoor defenders. Scott Dyson added the conversion.

But Eastmoor weren’t  finished despite the game now being beyond them. A kick along the floor into the in goal area was pounced upon by Peter Craven and the try was scored. Leigh Joyce added the extras.

At the death Scott Green finally settled matters with a try. The ball was worked along the Thornhill attacking line. When Green took the ball he sold a wonderful dummy to splice open the Eastmoor defence. With the try line at his mercy Green nipped over for an unconverted try.

When the full time whistle went Thornhill celebrated another step towards Premier Division survival.

Match report compiled by Andrew Byram.  Match Photos here