Leos finish runners up at Roundhegian 10s

Leos opened up there pre-season action by entering a squad into the Roundhegian 10s tournament on Saturday. A squad captained by Ed Farmer assembled in time for the first game against fellow Yorkshire 2 opponents Wetherby who seemed to be in a slightly more serious mode of operating with a sizable squad assembled and in true Leos style it was a sluggish opening 7 minutes and Wetherby ran out eventual winners in the opening pool game.

With a good break between the pool games there was plenty of time for Lundy to panic about sun burn from the grey overhead conditions and for Leddy to do his best impression of Jeff Stelling keeping the Leos boys abreast of all the days sports scores and providing insightful analysis throughout (the last bit may be poetic licence).

The 2nd game saw a much improved performance from Leos against a physical Barnsley side despite Lundys best efforts to keep the game interesting by insisting on taking the conversion to his tries and the less said about his efforts the better. But in the end Leos held on for a 17-12 victory. Mark Cooke proved his undoubted quality and hopefully we can persuade him that appearing for Leos is more important than any PHD.

Third up came Ossett who sucked Leos into playing a more 15 man based game than maybe you should be looking to play in 10s and with the score locked all square at 7 a piece at half time Gabz made his points with his usual verve and grasp of the English language and the 2nd half saw 3 unanswered tries by Leos to run out 28-7. This meant that the Pool was in the balance with victory in the final game meaning Leos would qualify for the knockout stages.

That game was against Harrogate Pythons and with the Cadge brothers having to depart to make sure that they weren't late for their Mum's 50th and Chesters struggling with a dead leg Leos would have to manage with just the 11 left standing in the squad for this game and any potential final games. The game started brightly but a turn over saw Harrogate create an overlap and their flyer set off down the touchline with glory in his sights only for Prop Mark McDaid to recreate George Gregans effort on Jeff Wilson all those years ago to the amazement of his fellow players, Gabz and possibly himself to smash the attacker into touch 5 yards from the line. No surprise the Harrogate player substituted himself under the "injury" claim we all know it was more likely shame. From there Leos never looked back with Lundy opening the scoring and shanking another drop kick and that man McDaid showing fleet of foot again to finish a flowing length of the field team score. The comment of the day came during this game as Lundy observed "I like these guys there the only team here more posh than us". The final score of 24-7 meant Leos qualified for the 2nd semi-final as runners up in their pool to take on the winners of the other pool and old adversaries Knottingley.

The Semi Final was a physical affair, do we expect anything else from a Leos - Knottingley game but in the end the defence of Leos just held firm in the dying minutes help by a few butter fingers in the opposition ranks to hang on to a tense 12-7 victory to set up the chance to put right the result of the 1st game of the day against Wetherby.

With a squad of 11 men having negotiated the last 2 games and a 5 minute turn around to the final it may be that many teams would have folded but despite this Leos though to the end and scored a deserved penalty try to bring themselves back into it at half time in the final. In the end it was [probably one game to far for Leos and the greater numbers and rest for the Wetherby squad probably told in the end. Wetherby were deserving winners and will pose a lot of questions following there promotion to Yorkshire 2, but Leos can take a lot of heart from the way they performed and the spirit on show throughout the day which bodes well for the season ahead.

Leos conclude their pre-season programme this Saturday in a club friendly away at Yarnbury.