2022 starts with a win at Home

Leos 2s returned to action in 2022 at a wet Crag Lane with Burley 2s the visitors.

Leos numbers were swelled by the late change in availability of Andrew Kennedy, the return from injury of Jim Capell while DTM has made the great escape from New York’s covid restrictions for the coming month.

Leos kicked off into the wind with Captain Sam Bender setting the defensive bench mark for the day with a big hit on the catcher. Burley however retained possession and went through the phases to test the Leos defence early. The visitors continued to enjoy the majority of possession in the opening minutes but Leos defence remained unrelenting with Finley Bruce and Rory Fowler taking no prisoners in the wide channels and Kenny & Bender marshalling the forward channels.

When Leos enjoyed possession they were guilty of over playing before going forward and the odd loose pass & knock odd killing all moments of momentum. From a ruck penalty Leos kicked deep the Burley half and having had a go firstly out wide put the Burley defence into reverse with a series of pick and goes before the ball was recycled and spread wide. Despite Rory failing to find Thomas Yule on the resulting 2 & 1 the ball was recycled and Joe Davidson picked and exploited the lack of numbers in the fringe defence to go over in the corner.

Burley came back and from a series of Leos penalties and passive line speed set up camp in the home sides 22. The resulting wave of pressure saw the referee have the chance to get very excited about awarding a goal line drop out before finally resulting in a crash over try for Burley to tie the scores up. This gave the referee to confirm with birthday boy Kenny what in his eyes constitutes a maul…safe to say there was a difference of opinions exchanged.

Leos responded quickly and following slick lineout ball Finley Bruce cut through like a hot knife through butter and despite scramble defence Leos recycled the ball in the 22 and when Bindloss was held up short, Kenny Parsons quickly picked up and dived over for the second Leos score of the day. Tom Tweddle added the extras.

The half came to a close with Leos pressing for a further score following an excellent kick chase turnover from Thomas Yule before the referee bought the half to a close for a head injury.

The 2nd half kicked off with Farmer Jim and American Dan introduced into the front row off the bench, but their fun was shortly curtailed after the game moved to uncontested scrums.

The half was primarily a battle between the two 10m lines with Leos sporadically put their patterns in place and getting through multiple phases.

These phases of play resulted initially through quick hands by Tweddle and Kennedy freeing Sam Bender into space before rolling back the years to his previous life as a winger to finish from 30m out.

The 2nd try of the half came in similar fashion as quick short hands in the forwards put Russell Wingfield through who then used the supporting President Nick Burdon to dummy his way past the final defender before diving over to score next to the posts. Both scores converted by Tom Tweddle.

The remainder of half continued in similar vain with breaks by Finley Bruce and Rory Fowler not capitalised on by Leos and the momentum generating carries by the Burley back row not maximised by the visitors.

However the last 10 did see a couple of rugby comedy golds with Burley’s player helping Leos out by tackling his own team mate. While Tomas Bindloss made sure he secured another dick of the day award with a beauty of an air shot when looking to kick the ball out to end the game.

Overall a solid performance from Leos to kick off 2022 with some well worked tries and solid defence throughout the 80 minutes.