Following their very impressive win at Crusader Colts the previous week Bramley were forced to make a number of enforced changes to this week's team. Shaun Flynn failed a late fitness test and Shaun Gilmour was also out injured. Mark Butterill, Richard Leese and Kevin Till were all unavailable through holiday and work commitments.

Dewsbury Celtic also had a handful of changes, mainly positional, from the team that had very comprehensively beaten Featherstone Lions 44-0 in their last outing. Bramley favourite Paul Gledhill was in the Dewsbury ranks.

On a fine dry afternoon with a generous amount of grass on the pitch Bramley kicked off with Dewsbury playing towards St. Peters church in front of a good sized crowd. Dewsbury kicked early in their first set and John Richardson comfortably collected the ball and ran the ball out of defence, Dewsbury conceded the first of many penalties when they had a second effort during the tackle on John Richardson.

Bramley started well and made good metres down field. A high kick by Tony Williams saw Thomas Webb cross the whitewash to score early on, only for him to be penalised for off-side.

Probing kicks from Paul Drake and Tony Williams were providing good field position, but Bramley were unable to turn this into points. Dewsbury were aggressive in defence and were looking to their big pack to make metres, which they were doing very effectively.

On eight minutes a relieving kick out of defence by Bramley was very well charged down and Dom Bryne, won the race to ground the ball over the Bramley line narrowly getting their before Paul Coates and team-mate Paul Gledhill. James Eatherley converted, 0-6 to Dewsbury.

Shortly afterwards Dewsbury signalled their intentions when in a good position near the Bramley line they failed with an attempted drop-goal. Bramley responded by going 80 metres and only failing to score a try when the final pass went to ground.

Indiscipline from Dewsbury helped Bramley get good field position and from a lovely short pass from Tony Williams, Jon Nichols scored Bramleys first try on 17 minutes. Daniel Caston then had weaving run when his pace and strength took him over 20m and passed 4 Dewsbury players before a head-high tackle halted his progress towards the posts. Dom Byrne was sin-binned but nothing came from the penalty as Bramley spilt the ball.

On 25 minutes Bramley took the lead when after good approach work from both Paul Coates and John Richardson, Jon Nicholls was given sufficient space out wide, a good turn of pace allowed him through a gap to score his second try out wide. Paul Drake added an excellent touch-line conversion, 10-6.

Dewsbury always made progress with ball in hand, Danny Thomas prompting all their best moves and they were able to create problems for Bramley who were not playing fluent rugby league despite holding the lead. Too many unforced errors or wrong options cost Bramley as they were unable to add further points.

Dewsbury to their credit stuck to their game plan and it paid dividends on 37 minutes when good attacking play saw Dom Byrne crash through despairing would be tacklers to score by the posts to draw the teams level. James Eatherley added the conversion and a further penalty on the stroke of half-time to edge Dewsbury 10-14 in front.

Bramley fans hoping that coach Paul Cook's half-time team talk would see a change of attitude were disappointed. Good approach work and kick by Paul Drake saw Dewsbury defuse a Bramley attack and very nearly post further points themselves. Dewsbury looked dangerous on attack and only desperate scrambling defence kept them at bay early in the second half.

Indiscipline was also a factor both teams were suffering from, both squandering good positions through silly infringements of the rules. Bramley seemingly wanted to score from every play and because they did not a hint of frustration crept into their play.

Danny Thomas almost scored on 53 minutes, but as he seemed certain to score he flicked the ball backwards and it was gratefully collected by Tony Williams under his own posts. On 60 minutes Danny Thomas was sin-binned, however moments later Eatherley kicked another penalty after an infringement at the play-the-ball, 10-16 to Dewsbury.

The introduction of Scott Pendlebury seemed to galvanise Bramley as from the re-start the ball went dead in goal. From the resultant drop-out Bramley for probably the first time in the game started to settle their play down and apply concerted pressure. This paid off in a big way as the game suddenly went away from Dewsbury as Bramley discovered their poise. From a tap-penalty Graham Harrison sent Matt Mullholland through a gap to score mid-way between the posts and corner flag, Paul Drakes conversion levelled the scores.

Further errors from Dewsbury saw John Elliker score a trade mark barnstorming try on 69 minutes, again converted by Drake. A Drake penalty on 72 minutes put Bramley two scores in front.

Dewsbury could not get their hands on the ball long enough now to make any meaningful progress and a third sin-binning late in the game compounded their situation. Bramley however posted further late try's through Paul Drake and Tony Williams (2). Two Paul Drake conversions gave the final score a rather lop-sided 40-16 victory to Bramley which you would have been hard pressed to predict at three quarter time.

As Paul Cook commented after the game "Dewsbury had a game plan and for 60-65 minutes stuck to it magnificently, ultimately though we (Bramley) had too much fire-power for them". He added that he thought Dewsbury should go well for the remainder of the season and would be a threat if they could keep this group of players together. He praised his Bramley team for their effort and for backing-up with a victory after the previous weeks exertions at Bridgend.

Overall, Dewsbury were enthusiastic in attack and defence and posed problems for Bramley for a large part of the game, however Bramley once again showed the value of their never-say-die scrambling defence which although under pressure only allowed Dewsbury a solitary penalty goal in the second half. In attack, Bramley proved as dangerous as ever with game-breakers all over the park able to strike decisive blows

In the club house after the game Paul Cook made a special presentation to Paul Drake to mark his achievement of becoming the first Bramley Buffaloes player to score 1,000 points for the club, a feat he achieved with a second half penalty at Bridgend the previous week. For the record, since making his debut for the club in season 2005, Paul has played 77 games (74+3 as sub), scoring 1002 points, comprising of 390 goals, 55 try's and 2 drop goals (excluding today's game with Dewsbury) – well done Paul.

Bramley's next game is away at Featherstone Lions on Thursday, June 19.

BRAMLEY BUFFALOES: 1) Paul Coates, 2) Andy McGann, 3) Daniel Caston, 4) Matt Mullholland, 5) John Richardson, 6) Paul Drake, 7) Tony Williams, 8) Gareth Thirsk, 9) Thomas Webb, 10) Danny Johnson, 11) John Elliker, 12) Graham Harrison, 13) Jon Nicholls, SUBS; 14) Scott Pendlebury, 15) Neil Hesketh, 16) Steven Gill, 17)Daniel Lavery
Tries: Nicholls (17, 25), Mullholland (64), Elliker (69), Drake (75), Williams (77, 80)
Goals: Drake 6/8

DEWSBURY CELTIC: 1) James Eatherley, 2) Steve McNamara, 3) Paul Gledhill, 4) Terry Maun, 5) Jack Bradbury, 6) Rob Senior, 7) Danny Thomas, 8) Tim Land, 9) Tom Perks, 10) Mark Chandler, 11) Anthony England, 12) Dominic Byrne, 13) Luke Kemp, SUBS: 14) Danny Lee, 15) Graham Dobson, 16) Sheara Singh, 17) A Walmsley
Tries: Byrne (8, 37)
Goals: Eatherley 4/4

Sin Binned:
Byrne (Punching), Thomas (Punching), Lee (Punching)

Men of the Match:
Bramley – John Richardson
Celtic – Dom Byrne

Half Time: 10-14
Full Time: 40-16
Referee: M Mannifield (Huddersfield)