THE one crumb of comfort for Yorkshire on a tough day at Taunton yesterday was that the bonus points which they picked up were enough for them to replace Essex in the third promotion spot in the Second Division of the Championship.

For most of the time, however, their bowlers had to focus on trying to restrain Somerset opener Matt Wood, who plundered an unbeaten 182 on a good batting pitch and led his side to 373-5 at the close when they were only 33 runs behind on the first innings.

Yorkshire set out on 377-7 and, although a few sturdy blows from Richard Dawson made sure they would get to 400 and a fifth batting bonus point, the tail soon capsized to Andrew Caddick, who grabbed three wickets in six balls to finish with the excellent figures of 6-96.

Dawson and Ismail Dawood were both lbw and the first ball which Chris Silverwood received knocked back his off-stump.

Silverwood then put in an admirable opening spell but he had no luck and with the score on 24 had John Francis dropped at first slip when Phil Jaques could not hold on to a simple chance.

Wood gathered runs with pleasing strokes to all parts of the field and Yorkshire's most effective bowler was Anthony McGrath, who, in a ten-over spell, had Francis and Arul Suppiah caught behind the wicket by Ismail Dawood, Francis sparring at a wide ball outside off stump after adding 116 with Wood and Suppiah glancing too finely for the wicketkeeper to hold on at full stretch diving to his left.

There was no stopping Wood, who completed a faultless century off 132 balls with 18 fours, but James Hildreth hooked Tim Bresnan's bouncer to Dawson at deep backward square leg and it became 215-4 when Wesley Durston flicked Silverwood to Joe Sayers at square leg.

Wood by this stage was on 123 and he now embarked on another century stand, this time with Somerset's powerful captain, Ian Blackwell, who drove Dawson for a big six on his way to a half-century off 69 balls with five fours and a six.

Blackwell was prevented from doing much more damage by Bresnan, who had him edging to Jaques at slip for 62 after helping Wood put on 109 in 25 overs, but Wood then found another solid partner in Keith Parsons and at the close the opener had faced 264 balls and struck 24 boundaries.

Updated: 11:44 Friday, August 12, 2005