Victory over Ripon

After the disappointment of last week's defeat at Wath, Leos continued their somewhat binary string of performances with a comfortable win over Ripon.

Maybe we should change our name to Old JeckyllandHydians. Leos returned to league action with an ultimately comfortable 51-17 victory over Ripon, a team against whom we traditionally struggle.

Kicking off into a strong breeze, Leos were quick to show the tempo and continuity missing from the previous week's stop start affair, and opened the scoring with a Mark Winter score under the sticks on 3 minutes. However, Ripon are never an easy team to overcome, and soon responded when Vaughan Going, a recent Premiership player with Northampton, Sale and Leeds, crossed to level the scores. Things were evenly matched with Neil Liu and Winter crossing again for the home side, while Ripon responded with a kick and chase that Leos failed to deal with effectively. The teams turned around with Leos defending a narrow 20-17 lead.

The second half was much better from Leos point of view with Winter completing a hat-trick, while Sleights, Henry, Levitt and Thompson all crossed to give a final score of 51-17. Despite Mark's triple effort, the Man of the Match award went to Jordache Myerscough for a bravura performance from the second row.

In other results, our second XV returned from deepest Knottla with a 61-0 scalping in which Simmo crossed for his first Leos try and young Jack Haire, who obviously has a very talented mother, given the skillset of father Ian, continued to presage his elevation to higher things. Nick Burdons men crossed the try line on 10 occasions, and the dead ball line on 1, a Stuey Norton special.

The 3rd/4th Combo continues to grow in depth, the squad of 24 a harbinger of the 4th team reforming as a discrete (but not discreet)entity over the next 2 weeks or so. However on this occasion, a Ripon 3rd XV proved too strong and won with a 10 point margin. Skipper Nick Cranfield put defeat down to the frustration of an unnamed married man in the pack who is having conjugal difficulties at home. The person in question, whose identity must remain hidden, has started calling his wife Euromillions, a reference to the fact that every weekend seems to be the latest in a series of Rollovers.