1st Team vs Wath Brow Hornets

YORK Acorn made history on Saturday as they progressed to the Fifth Round of the Betfred Challenge Cup for the first time in their history.

Anyone who made the journey to Thanet Road on Saturday, witnessed one of the great challenge cup Fourth Round fixtures between two heavyweight amateur rugby league clubs.

Cumbrians Wath Brow Hornets, heavily fancied to progress, brought a star-studded team to take on Acorn fresh from their Third Round upset at Cornwall a fortnight prior.

But it was the hosts who prevailed as the final amateur team left in this year's competition with a thrilling 32-28 victory.

It was, indeed, the visitors who started the more brightly, putting the Acorn defence under pressure from the off, with internationals Ellison Holgate and Fran King at the fore. 

But after 15 minutes in a rare visit to the Wath Brow 20-metre line, Antony Chilton rolled back the years with a show and go for the first score the afternoon, before converting to give the hosts a 6-0 lead. 

With Acorn's tails up, they marched down field and allowed young hooker Alfie Crawford to cause havoc in the Wath Brow defence. Following a high tackle on Matt Chilton, brother Antony kicked the penalty for an 8-0 lead. 

But from the restart, Josh Mortimer's side saw themselves pegged back.

The visitors forced an error in the first of some bone-rattling hits, with King proving a handful from the resulting scrum and a classy offload to Greg Howland saw him dive in the corner to halve the deficit.

The game settled back into an arm wrestle, but the Acorn interchange bench proved influential.

Davey Burns, Joe Porter and Nathan Conroy were introduced into the fray and it was indeed the latter two that combined for Acorn's next score when Conroy bit deep into the Wath Brow line and Porter hit a beautiful crash ball line to skittle two defenders and round the full-back to widen the gap to 10.

But with the first half coming to a close, Acorn's discipline let them down again and a needless push at the play-the-ball enabled Cole Walker-Taylor to add two crucial points to leave the score 14-6 at half time.

The hosts started the second half brightly, with strong carries from Porter, Conroy and Chris Rushworth put Acorn on the front foot, and after Matt Chilton forced the Wath Brow full-back in to fumble a kick, they were in again a couple of players later. 

A flowing move to the left involving Ant Chilton and Josh Parker saw the latter hit a hard line, but he was able to beat a man and duck under a Wath Brow tackle and reach out to score. 

What followed showed what a champion side Wath Brow are. For the next 15 minutes they were almost unplayable, repeated quick play-the-ball's had Acorn all over, Farrar and Tomlinson setting the platform. 

First, a cross field kick from Walker-Taylor saw Peter Caddy walk in completely unopposed and a touchline conversion made it 18-12.

In the next eight minutes, Jake Pearce managed to cross for two more similar tries, after the ball had gone left through Holgate and King.

Walker-Taylor kicked both, handing the visitors a 24-18 lead, much to the delight of a large group of visiting fans. 

Under the cosh, Acorn needed a bit of luck, and from the resulting kick off got it. 

With Wath Brow fumbling the kick-off and the introduction of powerhouse forwards Jack Byrnes, Eddie Prescott and Lewis Lord, they managed to wrestle themselves level.

Lord managed to find a half-gap, with his late low offload well picked-up by Prescott on the move to dive over under the sticks in one motion. Chilton converted to set up a thrilling finish. 

With Acorn again in the ascendancy and cheered on by a large home crowd, Crawford was again at the fore as they marched down field and again won a kickable penalty. Chilton was on target to hand them a precious two-point lead.

And that advantage was extended with eight minutes left to play, Conroy forcing an offload to Byrnes, who pounced on the ball to score just to the side of the posts before Chilton again added the extras amid the rapturous scenes.

But Wath Brow never gave up, continuing to hammer the Acorn line for the remainder of the game. 

They eventually got their reward late on, with the deserving Farrar powering over. Walker-Taylor missed the conversion with a drop-goal attempt but by then, Acorn's celebrations had already commenced.