MAYBE it was the incentive of providing a fitting memory to former club chairman, player, life member, second-team manager, minibus driver and first XV touch judge Tony Little, who died last Wednesday.

Maybe it was the incentive of a Counties Two Yorkshire derby against previously unbeaten Bradford & Bingley.

Maybe it was a combination of the two, but Baildon, who climbed one place to sixth, certainly coped better with referee Innocent Gitari (West Yorkshire Society) than the visitors, who dropped from first to third after the 26-17 defeat on what proved a long afternoon, with both halves adding up to 98 minutes in total.

Baildon captain Ollie Murphy revealed: “We played to our strengths. We have working all season on good ruck clear-out, and the occasion won it for us as well.

“The passing of Tony Little was in our thoughts while we were playing as he was a stalwart of the club and it was nice to get a win after we have twice lost by close margins, so it was ready to fall into place.

“We retained the ball well and we were willing to do the nitty-gritty. We were nowhere near the size of their front eight, but the pack and the rest of the backs were willing to run hard.
“They seemed to lose their heads a bit, but our aggression was in the spirit of the game and the ball bounced our way, which it hasn’t always done.

“We have to value the Yorkshire referees, who are in decline at the moment, so the fact that we can have a game of rugby is a positive.

“We have been on the wrong side of referees earlier in the season, but we kept our heads and maybe got on the right side this time.”

Bees coach Ali Macdonald found no solace in his side’s first league defeat of the season, saying: “We lost it because we were too focused on complaining about every little thing and it was a good reality check for us.

“Little habits have been slipping in and it has all come to a head with this dreadful, dreadful performance

“We didn’t do our jobs, we didn’t do what we said we were going to do for the past two or three weeks. In fact we did the complete opposite.

“We allowed the occasion get to us and every little niggle, every little thing we seemed to take as a personal affront and every high tackle or perceived high tackle ended in a scrap.
“We never allowed ourselves to set off from a platform, but at half-time I thought ‘happy days’ (the Bees were 17-10 behind with the slope to come).

“However, it was a bit frustrating that they scored in the 51st minute of the first half when the referee had called ‘last play’ on four occasions.

“Being 17-10 down was no problem, but we decided to make it a problem by doing nothing in the second half but whinge, whine, moan, throw our hands up like petulant children and try and referee the game instead of letting the referee do his job.
“We let the occasion get to us, we got nothing out of the game and we deserved nothing. I gave them a rocket at full-time and now we practice as best we can for Huddersfield Laund Hill at home in two weeks’ time.

“But in those five matches that we won we did what we practiced during the week. Baildon didn’t offer much here and the only thing that kept them in the game was the penalty count.”

After an impeccably observed minute’s silence in memory of Little, Baildon kicked off down the Jenny Lane slope in front of a crowd of several hundreds.
The visitors, who alongside Old Otliensians and Bridlington had won all five matches with bonus points to sit equal top on 25 points, showed good continuity in their initial attack and won the first penalty.

They won the line-out that followed, only for the black shirts of Baildon to win back possession.

The home side took the lead in the 11th minute when a well-judged grubber kick from flanker Mason Holmes-Field was hacked on by Fola Dairo, the winger then collecting the ball to score.

Lock Ollie Murphy was sin-binned for a 20th-minute high tackle on Bees scrum half Sam Wild and a try resulted a minute later via flanker Adam Mapals, though Baildon were convinced an infringement had taken place in the build-up, resulting in a fracas after the touchdown had been awarded.

The try was only confirmed after a long conversation between Gitari and touch judge Jolyon Dobbs, Bees full back Dom Walker adding the conversion.

The visitors then lost prop Alex Leadbeater to a yellow card after he made contact with the back of a Baildon player’s head in trying to get the ball back.

While both sides were down to 14 men, Dairo came into the line to good effect on the half-hour to set up a try for winger Luke Strauss, giving Baildon a 10-7 advantage.

Walker slotted a penalty to level matters seven minutes later, but weak tackling then allowed Dairo to run 40 metres and score in the 11th minute of stoppage time, fly half Sam Murphy converting for 17-10.

Bradford & Bingley were first to score in the second half via Alex Leadbeater following good interpassing, Walker tying matters with the extras.

But Sam Murphy landed penalties in the 57th, 68th and 78th minutes, and two disallowed tries, the second eight minutes into stoppage time, meant that there wasn’t even a losing bonus point for the visitors.