Elks earn four try bonus in defeat

Elks travelled to second placed Dronfield and despite a spirited performance went down 34-24 in a highly entertaining game.

Elks began well with the slope and favouring wind and were soon in the Dronfield half, the Elks were awarded a penalty and Jake Lamb kicked to the corner, Aidan Norris took clean ball and the pack controlled the drive well to score with Jake Smithurst getting the vital touchdown, extras missed 0-5 after 10 mins.

The Elks failed to deal with the kick off and Dronfield took full advantage with a try of their own after 15 mins, extras added making it 7-5.

Lamb was tactically astute pinning Dronfield back with some well-placed kicking, the Elks spent a long period in the Dronfield 22 and after several; forward drives the ball was recycled to the wing for Jamie Baxter to score, extras missed from wide out making it 7-10 after 26 mins.

The Elks were soon back on the attack and following a Dronfield penalty kicked to the corner, another clean take from Norris allowed the pack to trundle forwards, this time Tom Pottinger broke off at pace and stormed over, Lamb added the extras to stretch the lead to 7-17 after 32 mins.

Dronfield came back and following a series of Elks penalties they worked a good chance for the right winger to crash over just before half time, extras missed making it 12-17 at Half Time.

Elks made the worse possible start to the half as they failed to deal with the kick off and Dronfield stormed forward to register a try, extras missed making it 17-17 after 43 mins.

Dronfield were now in full flow and combined with several individual errors stretched their lead through a converted try and penalty kick making it 27-17 after 58 mins.

Elks rallied with a couple of attacks but failed to register any scores, Dronfield came back again and added another try on 71 mins, extras added making it 34-17.

Credit to the Elks as they threw everything at Dronfield in search of a try bonus point, it looked like the Elks had scored from a driving line out but it was given as held up, from the ensuing scrum Pottinger picked up and fed Lamb who crashed through to score under the posts, Lamb added the extras making it 34-24 after 76 mins.

Despite a big effort the Elks could not get within 7 points and had to settle for a 4 try bonus point, despite a few individual errors the performance was a good one with scrum and line out in particular working well, back s created several opportunities but overall Dronfield deserved their victory which puts then in play-off contention.

Good performances were given by Lamb, Pottinger and Lebeter but Man of the Match goes to Aidan Norris who continues to improve his all round game and was commanding in the line out.

Next week see cup action at Notts Casuals in the NLD Plate semi finals so get down and cheer on the Elks.