Lovers of irony would fully appreciate Chris Hough's 75 minute drop goal that nicked this one for Batley. He'd had an awful afternoon with the boot which looked like it might cost his side the game. He'd also taken loads of stick from the Hornets contingent for obvious reasons.

Lovers of flowing, committed Rugby League, however would have left this game sorely disappointed. Try as I might I can't put it any more succinctly than Batley coach Paul Storey, "The difference was between one side that really wanted to win and one which thought it ought to."

Indeed, despite team changes due to injury, Hornets - as a team - were awful. Analysis of individual performances might well reveal that everyone tried hard and gave it their best shot. But whatever team spirit galvanised many of the same players into a unit greater than the sum of its parts last season seems to have evaporated.

This was exposed after just 7 minutes as Batley fullback Lingard - who gave Hornets all sorts of problems all afternoon - steamed down the hill onto a short pass and slipped the ball out for centre Maun to score.

Briefly, the score shook Hornets from their torpor. On 20 minutes Sean Cooper showed good strength to score on the end of a move from broken play, followed to the line five minutes later by Paul Davidson who blasted his way through from close range - and showing what he can do when he's arsed.

At 14-4 ahead up the slope Hornets looked to have steadied the ship, but the introduction of Mark Cass on half an hour really rocked the boat. With virtually his first two touches he threaded Lingard through the tightest of holes for him to stride away and drop off neat passes for Gledhill to score wide out. Carbon copy efforts that left the scores tied at 12-all.

With the half all but dead in its boots, Dave Watson backed up a break by Dave Larder and showed no little pace to outrun the cover and scoot in untouched from 30 metres. Exhalations of relief all round and the belief that 40 minutes down the hill should see the job done. Ah, how wrong we can be.
Within five minutes Mark Cass had picked out Andy Spink with a micrometer pass and he crashed in to score under the posts. 18-all and Batley sensed that Hornets might not have the fuel in the tank to go the distance.

The introduction of Joe Nadiole and his blockbusting runs gave Batley and their fans a real lift and Hornets visibly began to struggle to contain the Bulldogs. But on a rare foray into Batley territory, once again Dave Watson had had enough arsing around and took the ball himself, cutting through flapping tacklers and sprinting in from 30 metres. Woody converted and with 15 minutes on the clock, Hornets were again back in front.

It was a lead which lasted three and a half minutes. Batley regained possession, Lingard made a clean break and Watson executed a perfect man and ball tackle. Referee Connolly was the only person in the ground to think it high and, from the resulting posession, Cass walked in from acting half. Hough converted, scores were tied and Hornets were gone.

First Hough hoofed a drop-goal atttempt ridiculously wide, but on the next visit into Hornets territory he got it dead right and slammed home the winning point. All Hornets had left in the bag was a flapping, dying drop-goal effort from Wood, which patently wasn't enough.

So Hornets find themselves on the wrong end of a one point defeat - and can thank their lucky stars that it wasn't much worse. Whilst individual players huffed and puffed, TEAM effort was non existent. Dave Watson again put in a superb one-man show, defying Batley to the end. And while James Bunyan and Dave Stephenson ran themselves to a standstill, the overall performance struggled to peak at poor.

Angry Martin Hall described the effort as '...unacceptable...' - echoing the thoughts of the decent Hornets following.

So this lousy result leaves Hornets doing mental arithmetic to see whether we'll qualify for the latter stages of the Buddies National Cup. But after yesterday's showing, I don't actually care if we do or not.

Embarrassment is hard to swallow. And I'm ending this as I started it - in a Hough.