Youthful Exuberance Overcomes Craggy Cas

The regular Leo’s smattered throughout the line up were finding the youngsters more recognisable and certainly a most welcome augmentation to the Leo’s social rugby squad. They add pace, skill, enthusiasm and few bad habits to complement the grumbly stalwarts of Leo’s 3rd XV. However, before their flair could be displayed there was a ferocious battle for possession and territorial supremacy to be won.
The early exchanges were well matched and competitive with both packs grappling for possession. Cas opted for the more lateral approach to joining the breakdown where the Fozaree preferred to allow old school shemozzling to develop. With possession hard to secure and Harry getting dragged in to the melee it was hard for Ports and Tim M to get the backs moving. Set pieces had Leo’s in the ascendancy with Mike and Dave securing Ben’s throws and the front five making steady scrum progress. Occasional flair broke out as did the over-zealous tackling and rucking from the under fire visitors. They even resorted to personal abuse by calling The Malawi Magician fat, very hurtful and quite uncalled for. Eventually enough clean ball was won with good repetitive forward drives making the yards and the backs set lose for a score. A second quickly followed before Cas made good use of their own ball to get back in the game. Calmness was required so Scotty slowed things down with a trademark trundling maul or two before the bored backs joined in to score a third before the break.
Fresh pace, and Big D were added to liven things up and Lovejoy would have had he not forgotten to put on shorts under his waterproofs. As the visitors tired during the more open second half the livelier Leo’s were able to show their superior speed of thought and deed. Eventually the shorted Lovejoy joined in with some boshing trundles, complemented in the centres by young Chris. Big D went on some of his own momentum powered rumbles as the pack continued to work hard. Cas became more tetchy and frustrated with some high shots and added chelpage which caused the Fozaree to have a hissy fit as he tried to shut them up. He did keep things flowing as much as possible with some lengthy advantages to provide more scoring opportunities. Ports completed a hat trick and other long distance tries were scored as the visitors tired, possibly exhausted by their bickering and nefariousness. Harry continued to pop over extras but the visitors still had some spirit left to score a second of their own before Leo’s put the game out of sight as the young students revelled in the space left for them by the tiring Cas side.