Hull Vulcans 5  Hull Ionians Hawks  30 - Yorkshire Premier League

The long awaited return of players from injury began on Saturday, just in time for this local derby. In the backs Karl Birch returned from a broken foot and centre Pete Murphy from a hamstring injury. Two very late call offs in the front row led to a last minute call-up for prop Adi Longbone.
The fired up team started strongly and from their first attack scrum half Adam Thomas broke two tackles to score from a scrum 25 metres out. Unfortunately he dislocated a finger in the process and had to retire. This resulted in Rob Owen taking over at scrum half and Chris Walker joining proceedings on the wing. From the next scrum in almost the same position Danny Hague made good ground before giving a great off load to Martin Carew who had the strength to get the ball down over the line.
Backs and forwards were starting to combine really well now as the Hawks played some of their best rugby of the season. The ball was swung across the pitch twice before smart hands put in full back John Potts at the corner. Karl Birch was very unlucky with the touchline conversion which hit both posts. The Hawks were winning a lot of ball now, a feature of the game was the amount of turn over ball won by determined counter rucking. The Hawks extended their lead with a penalty and had time to score one more try when Karl Birch glided through a gap to score a try himself.
With a 27- 0 lead the Hawks started to use their full replacement bench. Sam Forth replaced his brother Ally at hooker and Stu Towns replaced James Baron on the wing. The team was further disrupted when after making a scintillating break Rob Owen was felled by a high tackle and had to leave the pitch. Replacement standoff Mike Meluish took over to play scrum-half for the first time and gave a good performance. 12 stone Seamus Lucey then replaced 18 stone Martin Carew and young number 7 Tim Wilson gave skipper Danny Zgoda a well earned rest.
The second half was less eventful enlivened by bullocking charges from man of the match Rich McKay who left several of his ex team mates sitting on their backsides. Hull competed well at all times and deserved a well worked try they scored in the corner. The Hawks were content to run the clock down and they sealed the victory and the league points when Karl Birch kicked a second penalty.