Eagles lose battle against Knights

16/07/2023

Sheffield Eagles’ woes away from South Yorkshire continued on Sunday as York Knights triumphed 23-18 at the LNER Community Stadium.

The Eagles were 6-12 in front at the break courtesy of tries from Ben Jones-Bishop and Matty Dawson-Jones but the second period would prove to be a different story.

York started to control the game better than Sheffield and would ultimately take their chances through Jason Bass, Jordan Thompson and Jesse Dee.

Liam Harris broke the deadlock for the hosts on 13 minutes as he collected a Cory Aston kick before running 90 metres. He converted his own score.

A response from the Eagles was almost instant. Aston’s restart was knocked on by Bass, the scrum play resulted in a try for former Knights winger Jones-Bishop. Aston levelled the scores with the boot.

Most of the half would be a set-for-set contest with neither side blinking. However, after the Eagles put the pressure on in the shape of a goal-line dropout, the visitors would edge ahead shortly before the interval.

An offload from Bayley Liu was on the money for Dawson-Jones to go over. Aston added the extras.

Half-time - York Knights 6-12 Sheffield Eagles

York started the second half with vigour and reduced the arrears to two points when Bass squeezed in at the corner. Harris couldn’t convert.

A mixture of indiscipline and handling errors from the Eagles handed York more chances to edge ahead and that’s exactly what they did on the hour mark. Thompson managed to fend off a tackler or two to barge over from close range. Harris’ conversion had the score at 16-12 to the hosts.

With ten minutes remaining, the Knights looked to have the win in the bag when Dee ran a great line to extend York's advantage. Another Harris conversion followed.

Sheffield did make it interesting when Sene-Lefao rattled home with six minutes left to go. An Aston conversion put four points between the sides - that became five when Harris kicked a drop goal in the latter stages.

Needing a converted try to steal the game, the Eagles rolled the dice once or twice but couldn’t come up with anything valuable.

Full-time - York Knights 23-18 Sheffield Eagles

By the time Sheffield play their next game, against Halifax on 28th July at the OLP, it’ll be exactly two months to the day since they completed back-to-back victories in the Betfred Championship.

The win-loss-win-loss routine still sees the Eagles in fourth place but with the pack closing in as playoff contention hots up beneath the Steel City outfit.

By Dan Fowler, photo by Alex Coleman