They are currently bottom of Yorkshire Division Five C, have suffered numerous serious injuries and had five cry-offs leading up to their home match against Pontefract Pythons yesterday.

They again called Bob Wood out of semi-retirement, started with fellow prop Paul Garside, who is better suited to half a game, and had 46-year-old John Paine as their sole replacement.

In addition, the visitors had scrum half Oscar Gurtler sin-binned and Wibsey fly half James Sawyer missed a long-range penalty and a conversion.

Yet, despite all this, Wibsey should have been sitting in their clubhouse waiting for the England match with two league points in the bag.

Wibsey turned round trailing 16-0 but, with a stiff breeze in their favour, they proceeded to throw away a decent crop of chances that ought to have resulted in victory.

Sawyer's second-half restart went straight out, Wibsey soon gave away a turnover and a later kick down centrefield went dead, giving Pythons a scrum back in the home half.

Knock-ons also killed several Wibsey attacks in and around the Pythons 22, notably when a cross-kick gave them a late opportunity to score a try that could have led to a winning conversion.

No Wibsey player deserved to be on the winning side more than 20-year-old No 8 James Birkbeck.

Their main target for line-out ball, the trainee plumber also tackled his heart out and went on several lung-bursting runs that deserved more than they achieved.

The hosts played into the wind first and, although Pythons had a try disallowed in the ninth minute when Gurtler's pass to scorer Shane Simpson was ruled forward, Wibsey reached the 20-minute mark without conceding any points.

Then, however, Simpson landed a penalty and converted second row Phil Liddell's try after a break by No 8 Ken Day.

Two more Simpson penalties stretched the gap to 16 points but he hooked a penalty across the face of goal five minutes after the restart as Wibsey failed to camp in the Pythons half.

The moment of the match came in the 51st minute when Wibsey full back Harry Hall jinked and weaved his way through some heavy traffic to score a peach of a try from 40 metres out.

Sawyer hit an upright with the conversion but by then the hosts had lost Wood with a neck injury, the forward spending much of last night at the hospital.

His X-ray was inconclusive but the subsequent CT scan was all clear, the diagnosis being a torn neck muscle with, what Wood called, a "funny looking" third neck bone.

Gurtler's yellow card came in the 59th minute and Wibsey made their numerical advantage count when centre Paul Collins went over ten minutes later, Sawyer again putting the kick wide.

Simpson again found kicking into the wind difficult when his penalty blew wide in the 73rd minute, but, with James Birkbeck again providing a strong lead, Wibsey finished the match stretching the Pythons defence with a variety of testing cross-kicks and diagonal hoofs.

In the end, they were left to rue a second half of missed opportunities.

Pythons lost winger Dean Lamb in the second half with a hole above his eye and a hole to his nose that required a total of 20 stitches.

(photo shows Chris Paine going for the ball)