Rugby men face inevitable drop

Their 39-8 loss away at Keighley ended their slim chances of survival, as North Ribblesdale won at Ilkley to open up an unassailable gap.

Dinnington started this game, like they knew they had to, at a fast pace and in the opening quarter of an hour they managed to keep Keighley pegged back in their own half.

With only five minutes played, Chris Williams gave them the lead with a penalty and when Keighley had a player sent to the bin five minutes later things were looking good.

However, Dinnington failed to capitalise and were soon defending near their own line.

They managed to survive one attack from a line-out but were caught out by a short throw and Keighley went 5-3 ahead at the mid point of the half.

Five minutes later a penalty extended the lead to five points.

Williams was kicking well for Dinnington with positional kicks forcing Keighley into their own 22 but Dinnington could not contain their hosts and were caught out several times by breaks from deep.

They were lucky that one break came to nothing with a knock on but two minutes before half-time Keighley kept hold of the ball to go into the break leading 13-3.

Keighley, who are pushing for a promotion play-off, came out in the second half and had Dinnington under pressure immediately.

Six minutes into the half they pushed the Dinnington scrum back inside the visitor’s 22 and picked up close to the line to score a converted try.

Dinnington made a strong response and thought they had scored when Ryan Donnelly touched down in the corner only for the referee to disallow it because he was unsighted.

Keighley nearly benefited from this, as Dinnington were celebrating what they thought was a good score, the hosts picked the ball up and set off on a run which only ended with a foot in touch.

Minutes later, Dinnington did get their try when following a few phases of play after a line-out, Donnelly came off the back of a ruck to score in the corner.

This was as good as it got for Dinnington because for the remainder of the game they found themselves camped in their own 22.

A series of penalties conceded and mistakes, as they tried to counter-attack, contributed to Keighley scoring three times in the last 10 minutes to consign Dinnington to the drop.

Tomorrow, Dinnington play their final league game of the season at home to Ilkley.