YORK RI fought valiantly but lost 27-17 in Yorkshire 3 to promotion-chasing Baildon.

RI started brightly, pressurising the visitors' defence, with Thomas, Cooksey and Ashman prominent in driving the home pack forward.

Baildon's defence held and from their first foray into RI territory they scored. From a scrum on the RI 22, the ball was shipped wide to Kirkham, who rounded the defence to score.

RI fell further behind on the half hour when, from an attacking position on the Baildon line, a wayward pass was intercepted by centre Cooper, who raced clear.

Although he was collared by full back Tim Nash, he managed to slip the ball to No 8 Murphy, who scored under the posts.

RI hit back with two tries. Matthew Stewart was driven over from a line-out and then Nathen Ashman broke from the scrum to dive over. A conversion by Stuart Watson left RI 14-12 down at half-time.

Baildon went further ahead just after the break when from a long punt downfield RI knocked on and from the resulting scrum Baildon hooker Rocket crashed over.

RI reduced the arrears on the hour, Ashman taking the ball from a tap penalty and evading four tackles to score wide out.

Even when Baildon kicked a penalty with 10 minutes to go to lead 22-17 RI still had chances, But the visitors' defence held firm and on the final whistle they scored again, through Murphy.

Updated: 09:34 Monday, April 11, 2005