ILKLEY always knew they’d be in for a tough away fixture on Saturday against the unbeaten league leaders, Scunthorpe, and that’s exactly what they faced.

It only took the hosts four minutes to open the scoring, with Scunny delivering a catch and drive at the lineout to score an unconverted try.

However, Ilkley were undaunted and took the game to Scunthorpe. On the back of sound scrummaging and winning lineout ball, they pushed the home side back and good retention and ball handling resulted in Freddie Clark going over for an excellent try.

Scunthorpe forced a penalty with their robust play and then scored a second try, converted, to put them in the lead.

The first half played out with Ilkley giving good account of themselves but were unable to force another score.

Playing with the wind in the second half gave the staunch Ilkley supporters hope that a win was possible and, indeed, Ilkley was in this game for over 50 minutes.

However, slowly and surely Scunny kept up their pressure game and in the last 15 minutes ran in further tries against a valiant Ilkley who had used all their replacements.

A promising debut was made by new player Jack Hamilton who made ground and tackled well. It will take a very good side to beat Scunthorpe this season, so Ilkley shouldn’t be too down about defeat at the weekend.

Ilkley play host to newly promoted Selby this Saturday and this is a must win game to settle the ship.

Ben Magee is hoping to return.