RUGBY LEAGUE - GARA THROW IT AWAY

The home side elected to play with the advantage of the slope in the first half, but any hopes they had of inflicting early punishment on Gara were thwarted by a break from Bryan Smyth.

From a strong run his ability to release the ball in the tackle was well supported for a Paul Marshall try, the conversion missed from in front of the posts.

Sherburn were gifted an equalising try in response after being awarded a dubious penalty close to the Gara try line.

Gara were enjoying some strong periods of possession and converted this into points with an unstoppable charge from Tony Daynes breaking down the home defence for a try, but again the simplest of conversions was missed.

Sherburn s defence was taking a battering from the resolute Gara attack, and a fine interchange of passes involving Smyth and Paul Marshall was rounded of with a Les Marshall try to extend the lead to 12-4.

But a rare mistake in the Gara defence was punished by Sherburn prior to the interval as their winger collected a loose ball for an unopposed run to the line.

The second half began badly for Gara as they failed to cover a stacked line resulting in an overlap for the simplest of tries for Sherburn, and this time the conversion attempt was successful.

Gara went back on the attack, were awarded a penalty in front of the home posts, and elected to take the two points to level the scores, Les Marshall converting.

With their way up the middle of the park blocked by some fine tackling from Tony Daynes in particular, Sherburn switched the play out on to the wing and a swift interchange of passes was rewarded with a converted try.

Trailing by six points it appeared that the Gara cause was lost until a superb break from Paul Wright saw him shrug of several tackles to score a fine individual try.

All Gara needed to tie the game was the conversion, however the ineptness of their kicking display saw the vital two-pointer missed and resulted in another defeat.

This was especially hard to take as Gara had played the better rugby and had enjoyed the majority of possession, but unless they are able to convert a higher percentage of tries scored this outcome will almost inevitably be repeated.

There is a game on Saturday, but the opposition and venue have still to be confirmed.