Hoppers beaten again on travels

Hoppers were narrowly beaten on their cross Pennine travels by Huddersfield to stretch their winless run to eight games. While being disappointed with the result Head Coach Dave Baldwin praised his teams ‘effort and commitment’ in a much improved performance that saw them score three well worked tries.

Things couldn’t have started worse for Hoppers as they fell behind in the opening minutes, after being unable to collect the kick-off they then gave away a free kick at the resulting scrum and after a couple of phases Tom Owen was put in at the corner, Huddersfield’s impressive fly half Chris Johnson missed the difficult conversion due to a strong wind but his ten points with the boot would see him break the divisions all time points record.

Both sides looked to run the ball on a hard surface but handling errors put pay to any try scoring opportunities. Hoppers thought they had scored when Mark Edwards rounded off an impressive break but play was pulled back and on the Touch Judge’s recommendation James Mawdsley was shown a yellow card for striking an opponent.

Hoppers did cross the line just before the break and held the lead at half time. After booming a kick into the Huddersfield 22, Mark Edwards’ subtle chip over the onrushing defence was perfectly weighted and Sean Taylor was able to ground the ball by the post, Edwards added the simple conversion.

Hoppers were playing into the strong wind in the second half but started brightly and scored two tries in the opening ten minutes. With Huddersfield trying to use the wind to pin the visitors back Hoppers had plenty of opportunity to run the ball and the speedy back three took full advantage.

Taylor got his second try after two good bounces of the ball, one to keep in play a Huddersfield clearance and the other to stand up Hoppers return, got the full back behind the home defence and after linking well with Tom Smith he had far too much pace for the covering players.

Edwards was then able to collect his own delicate chip over the top to score Hoppers third following good work from Alex Zavallis-Roebuck and Mark Rigbye who returned a Huddersfield drop back to their 22, Edwards saw the full back was out of position and gathered his own kick to score, he added both conversions and Hoppers had a healthy 21-5 advantage.

It was a lead they could not hold on to as Johnson chipped away with a penalty and the hosts ran in two tries in quick succession to snatch the lead. There were suspicions of a knock on in the build up to Ben Paxman’s try and a definite forward pass to set up Nick Sharpe but both were missed by the officials and Johnson was able to convert both and add a late penalty to see the home side home.

Hoppers deserved more than the losing bonus point for their efforts in what could be their final game of the season and may have got more but for some dodgy officiating in the build up to both of Huddersfield’s second half tries but they also needed to be more ruthless in closing out the game as this one was there for the taking.