New Brighton 47pts, West Park Bramhope 3pts

NEW Brighton returned to winning ways with a decisive 47-3 victory over lowly West Park Bramhope in the Thwaites League North Division One, on Saturday.

The Blues kicked-off in front of yet another good crowd and took only five minutes to open their account with a penalty by Guest. Bramhope showed fight and spirit, but clearly lacked the class to hold a rampant New Brighton.

Blues' fans were brought to life when Hodgers drove deep into the Yorkshiremen's territory to link with full-back Kennedy. A clever 'scissors' kick saw the speeding Whalley collect the pass and slice through a wrong footed defence. The winger's pace and classy jink beat the full back in a race to the line. Guest converted for 10-0.

New Brighton then turned on an exhibition of fast flowing multi-phase rugby for which their visitors had no answer. Towering lock Steve Fox galloped over to finish off a seven man move started by Williams to record the second try on 25 minutes for 15-0.

O'Hare raced across the field on 33 minutes to link with Whalley, whose punching run set up Kennedy for the score. Guest converted for 22-0.

Peter Lloyd replied with a penalty for the Yorkshiremen on the half-time whistle to reduce matters to 22-3.

Upon the resumption, Guest landed two quick penalties to extend the score to 28-3 and Chris Sutton crowned an excellent afternoon with a hat-trick of tries, Guest converting to take the score to its final outcome.

New Brighton: S. Dorrington, M. Dorrington, P. Feeley, B. Hearn, S. Gallagher, C. Turley, S. Fox, G. Jones, L. Hodgers, K. Brookman (Captain), H. Williams, P. Gazzola, P. Kay, L. Connor, A. Guest, H. O'Hare, A. Whalley, S. Hancock, C. Sutton, P. Kennedy.

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.