THREE tries in an 18-minute period of an otherwise scrappy and niggling game sealed a third win in three for Harrogate and set up an intriguing first against second contest with Henley at Claro Road on Saturday.

The start was delayed when some of the Nottingham squad and a touch judge were caught up in an M1 traffic jam and it seemed to affect Harrogate more than the home side as they struggled in the opening quarter.

Nerves were steadied after 22 minutes when Peter Taylor at last won good line-out ball and scrum-half Rhys Morgan put full-back Ed Smithies in at the corner.

Russell Southam landed a penalty for Nottingham but the game was effectively won in the last four minutes of the half, with two quality tries.

The first came when Morgan and lock Andrew Boyle made clever use of the narrow side for James Tapster to scoot over. Stand-off Lee Cholewa added the conversion as he did minutes later after Smithies had played football for 50 yards down the left for centre Jamie Barker to cross.

The second half degenerated into an ill-tempered encounter which saw referee Alan Hughes send both Oliver Cook and Mark Bradley to the sin-bin.

The only scores that followed were a penalty apiece for Southam and Cholewa.

Selby were caught by a late sucker punch as they went down 16-14 against Wheatley Hills courtesy of a final minute try.

The match was finely poised with Ray Adamson finding his range with two penalties to cancel out two efforts by Simon Bailey.

A Mick Parsonage try edged Selby in front, while Bailey and Adamson swapped penalties.

But just when Selby thought they had their second win of the season, Steve Porter sneaked over and Bailey converted to give Hills the points.

Updated: 12:07 Monday, September 16, 2002