Huddersfield Climb Out Of Relegation Zone With Victory At Scunthorpe
Huddersfield recorded back to back victories for only the second time this season as they triumphed on the road at National II basement boys Scunthorpe 28-17.
An unspectacular but professional display from Field ensured they carried the momentum from last weekends superb victory over Fylde and moved themselves out of the bottom three for the first time since October.
The winless hosts gave them a good battle throughout the 80 minutes however, and ran in an early converted try to put the pressure on straight away.
Field got a quick response minutes later when Josh Crickmay broke over and Will Milner sent the conversion between the posts in the start of another top notch kicking display to settle any nerves caused by that early setback, and began to dictate the tempo of the game which forced the hosts into numerous mistakes in possession.
After one such instant where Field regained the ball and pushed it up to the try line, Jack Maplesden managed to squeeze through the Scunthorpe defence to score back to back tries after having not claimed one in the season until last week.
And Lewis Workman ran another in soon after when he received the ball from the back of maul driven deep into Scunthorpe territory and skipped past a challenge to place the ball down and give Field a healthy 21-7 halftime advantage.
Scunthorpe look destined to head straight back down after coming up from the Midlands Premier last season but showed good heart to come out and give Field a stern test in the second half, Will Robinson running in his sides second try to give a glimmer of hope for a comeback.
It never really materialised and Field claimed their bonus point try when Josh Crickmay got his second to leave his try tally at 4 from the last 3 visits away from Lockwood Park, Milner converting to give himself an impressive 100% success rate with the boot.
Scunthorpe did dictate the latter stages of the contest in which Field were perhaps guilty of easing off the gas a little, but the hosts could only add an unconverted try onto their tally to ensure Field walked away with the 5 points in relative comfort.
Afterwards Head Coach Gareth Lewis commented: “Although not at our best today I’m delighted to take the five points. Conditions were difficult and we were a little inaccurate in attack but once we got into the opposition 22m we came away with points.”
“We have a little bit of wind in our sails at the moment but there is no way we’ll get complacent.”
Results elsewhere means them points place them a point above Luctonians who fall into the relegation zone, and within a bonus point victory away of climbing as high as 9th in what is now a congested bottom half of the table.
They’ll be looking to claim that victory when Preston Grasshoppers visit Lockwood Park next weekend, a side who Field triumphed over late on 29-22 earlier in the season and who find themselves 11 points adrift of safety after a 26-26 draw with Wharfedale last time out.
If Field claim another positive result in that game, then this second half of the season would be really shaping up as a superb turnaround from the difficult period endured before the festive break.
By Ben Brown
