Dewsbury lose out as Sykes fluffs his lines

Sheffield Eagles secured a morale-boosting victory after Dewsbury's Paul Sykes fluffed a conversion attempt at the death to hand Mark Aston's side a '¨30-28 success.
Paul SykesPaul Sykes
Paul Sykes

With the Eagles holding a healthy lead going into the last 10 minutes of the relegation four-pointer, it looked as though the hosts had missed an opportunity as the Rams clawed their way back with two late tries.

With coach Aston already walking towards the dressing room, Sykes’ nerve let him down as he sent the conversion attempt wide to hand the Eagles only their second win at the OLP.

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Eagles’ Cory Aston teed up the returning Jon Magrin to open the scoring in front of the sticks with Aston adding the extras.

Despite the purposeful start, Dewsbury responded with Dale Morton going over in the corner for a converted try, but the Eagles missed a great chance to go back in front when Jack Ashworth knocked on when attempting to ground Aston’s grubber. Ex-Eagle Daniel Igbinedion competed a flowing move to put the Rams in front, with Sykes converting, but the home side finished the first-half strongly to hold the advantage at the half-way stage.

On the 30-minute mark Matty Costello showed great fleet-of-foot to dance through the Dewsbury line to score, with Aston converting.

Then just before the break Matty Fozard caught the Dewsbury defence napping when he burrowed over from dummy half, and Aston kicked for a six-point advantage.

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After the break James Bentley knocked on after a tough pass from Aston right on the Dewsbury line, but shortly after Jake Spedding made a brilliant interception before running 90 metres to score.

Aston converted. With the game entering the final quarter, converted tries from Dom Speakman and Adam Ryder levelled the scores, with Aston missing a penalty to nudge his side back in front.

It was Aston’s pass soon after which handed Ashworth a well-worked converted try, but inside the final minute former Eagle Michael Knowles crossed to seemingly secure a point.

But Sykes missed the extras, allowing Eagles to leapfrog Rams in the table.